Chewing on Diamonds
by Don'tKillKenny
Summary: Six years after the Mitakihara disaster, Sayaka has become an undercover cop at Kazamino's upscale strip club. However, what she doesn't know is that the striking crimson-haired beauty training her is not only superhuman, but may be one of the criminals she's there to take down. Continuation of Oriko Magica timeline, KyoSaya, drugs, slight gore, crime, yuri, smutfest starts chp 2
1. Chapter 1

**Chewing on Diamonds**

Sayaka missed Mitakihara sometimes. It had been a bustling metropolis with sweets stores and restaurants that served foods of every nationality. The theatres had all kinds of entertainment, from action-packed blockbusters to beautifully tragic operas. There had always been things to do.

But those were only bonuses. What she really missed were the people. Her classmates, teachers (even if they were a bit too open about their personal lives), family, but most of all her friends. She had such wonderful friends. Kyousuke, the budding child musical prodigy. He had so much promise before his accident. But even afterwards, the mix of contentment and pain in his eyes when he listened to the classical CDs she brought him showed how deep his passion ran. Sayaka always wished she had that kind of passion for something she was talented at.

Then there was the beautiful Hitomi. She was the epitome of elegance and young beauty, which earned her tons of love letters, many of which were hilariously poorly written. Nevertheless, Sayaka always wished she got that kind of admiration. Mind you, no one would really call Sayaka beautiful or elegant. They might call her cute and tomboyish, which is fine and good but generally not the best for attracting love letters from silly teenage boys.

There was also the mysterious new transfer student, Homura Akemi. Sayaka had not known her for very long, but she was a friend of hers nonetheless. This girl seemed to follow Madoka around like a lovesick puppy, but when you're in a new place and don't know anyone it's natural to cling onto someone who is such an open and genuinely kind person. Sayaka always wondered what Homura was thinking, and what she could have learned had they become closer. She was an odd one…especially that cosplay outfit she appeared to wearing with the upper-year blonde, strange redhead and little green-haired girl the last time they saw each other…on _that _day.

And finally, her closest friend of all; Madoka. Sayaka's breath, even six years later still caught every time she thought of her. Madoka was the sweetest and most caring person she had ever met. Madoka had this way of making Sayaka feel like she was incredible in every way; like she could do anything she put her mind to; like she could be, and was a true hero and protector of justice. As cheesy as it was, Madoka was the wind beneath her wings and kept her going.

But things always happen that change people's plans. Kyousuke was going to be the world's next greatest composer since Hans Zimmer, but even after six years he can't move his fingers an inch. Hitomi was going to become an upper-class socialite that any successful businessman would be proud to call his wife, but ever since that awful day six years ago she's still terrified of being arovund too many people. Homura was going to become more confident and open up to people, but she literally disappeared off the face of the earth. And Madoka…Madoka was going to be a psychologist or a veterinarian; someone who could heal and help.

But that's pretty fucking hard to do when you're dead.

And it's then, when Sayaka remembers that strange, very strange, dreadful day where monsters attacked her school killing her teachers and classmates; when Sayaka remembers how she proudly declared that she would go upstairs with Madoka and help save the transfer student; when that piece of wood or something burst through the wall and into Madoka's chest; when the transfer student was suddenly gone.

Sayaka also remembered what came after. The police, asking why some students were covered in blood and the other half were nowhere to be found. Explaining to the Kaname family how their daughter had died, but she could not bring back a body to prove anything. How in a fit of the absolute worst luck, a horrible natural disaster struck a week later, destroying Mitakihara and wiping out almost a quarter of its two million person population in a single night. How her family made her take pills for years. How Sayaka took matters into her own hands and…self-medicated at times.

Some families moved back after the city was rebuilt, but many stayed where they had relocated. Most families went to Kazamino, simply because it was close. Parts of the northeastern part of Kazamino had been damaged too, but it was nothing compared to its western neighbour. Other survivors went to larger cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. Others simply left the country. Hitomi, Kyousuke, and Sayaka's own families were among the many that flooded into Kazamino and made the city of 800,000 boom to slightly less than 1.3 million.

The only bit of condolence from the disaster was that entire families were wiped out a time. Sayaka's mother lost her sister's family, but at least she died with her husband and children. None of them were left alone without their immediate family.

At least the Kaname family died, and didn't have to live on with the loss of their precious daughter. Sayaka had a hard enough time doing that, and she was only her best friend.

Yes, when Sayaka thinks enough about it she misses Mitakihara; but there is no way in hell she would ever go back.

* * *

><p>Kyoko missed Mitakihara sometimes. It had had so many witches, and <em>so <em>many grief seeds. After only two weeks of hunting, she had enough grief seeds to last her two months! Also, Mitakihara's arcade was way better than Kazamino's.

The biggest advantage to Mitakihara was that it wasn't Kazamino. Kazamino had too many bad memories; memories of starvation and memories of _them_. Kyoko liked being in a new city, so she never had to pass by a park and think of the time she and Momo played there, or go into a restaurant and be reminded of the one time her family had enough money to eat there for her birthday.

Before she left for Mitakihara, Kyoko had nothing to live for. She knew it. She could tell herself over and over again how she had herself, and that was more than enough but even she knew those were just hollow thoughts she used to console herself. Mitakihara gave her something, _someone _to live for.

The only reason she hadn't turned into a witch after her family's death was because she still had Mami, who was basically her big sister. So she still had some family. But then, when she found that poor little green-haired girl sitting in a pool of her abusive parents' blood in shock, she got a little sister who actually _needed _her.

Kyoko was positive that without Yuma, she would have given up a long time ago. Even if having Yuma made her current situation a bit…less than ideal, it sure beat being alone.

Kyoko was fucked up and she knew that. She never got past an eighth grade education because school would just get in the way of hunting witches. She was great at hunting, and it gave her everything she needed to survive with a bit (ok, a lot) of theft on the side. But Yuma deserved better; Yuma hadn't done anything to deserve her family leaving her behind, or her family abusing her in the first place. Yuma had done nothing wrong but was given a shit hand in life. Kyoko had been kind of ok, starvation aside and threw everything away on her own. Kyoko deserved everything that happened to her, but Yuma didn't.

Yuma deserved to go to school and live a somewhat normal life. The girl had been a dumbass when she was seven and became a magical girl, but if there were two of them, maybe at least one could live a normal, happy life right? Yeah, that was definitely possible.

So Kyoko had decided that Yuma should keep going to school. What she hadn't realized though was that to be enrolled in school, you needed a permanent address. To have a permanent address, you needed money to pay rent. To get money, you needed a job. And Kyoko still needed to have enough time to hunt witches, so it had to be a good-paying job that would give her more than enough money for only three or so days of work per week and didn't need any education to do it. She considered staying at the church, but she wasn't sure if that would count, or if it was even legal.

And that was how she started working at Tomi's Gentleman's Club, the shadiest yet most upscale strip joint in Kazamino. Normally, it takes at least two years of experience at a lower class joint to get a job, but Kyoko could prove pretty fast that she was more talented on a pole than any of their current staff. There are professional advantages to fighting dangerous creatures with a giant spear every night.

There are certain…requirements to work at Tomi's. For one, you had to be very, very sexual. That was a given, but just moving your hips a few times wasn't good enough. You had to sell an illusion to these men that they were powerful, handsome, and desirable; you had to make them believe that you, a beautiful young woman genuinely _wanted _them.

There were many ways to do this. Kyoko sold the wild, untameable amazon-type. She tended to attract weak men who wanted someone to take the lead, or leaders who wanted to break her in. If she wasn't a magical girl who could whoop their asses in five seconds flat, she might have been concerned about the latter. However, Tomi's has only one very strict rule for customers, and plenty of intimidating bouncers to enforce it; the girls can touch you if you pay for it, but you _never _touch the girls. So seeing wealthy business men with their hands at their sides, or draped on the backrest of a couch while scantily clad young women gave them lap dances was the norm.

The second rule, and arguably more important rule was that what happened in the club stayed in the club. They attracted all sorts of high-profile clientele, and many of them were not exactly the most reputable of characters. Kazamino had lots of organized crime, particularly drugs and loansharking since the influx of devastated refugees from Mitakihara six years ago; thousands were left with no homes, money, or friends. In short, they were the perfect targets.

And these crime lords loved to have their business meetings at Tomi's. So Kyoko and her coworkers knew about a lot of pretty fucked up and really illegal things in Kazamino. And they would never tell a soul.

From her work over the years, she built certain…connections you could call them. And from those connections, she managed to start a little entrepreneurial venture of her own. She was occasionally employed as something of an independent contractor, doing odd jobs for people of all sorts of backgrounds. She'd stolen back incriminating photos from a paparazzo. She found runaways who owed money to loan sharks. She delivered "messages". These jobs were by far her favourite and paid the most for her time, but were few and far between. However, that also made it harder for any authorities to catch her.

She was an outlaw in every respect. She still stole most of the groceries (what? She was good at it, and it was a lot cheaper. She's supporting a poor, starving girl so it's ok). She used her fake ID, Sakura Misaki, inspired by her late mother on all sorts of official documents like her rent contract before she turned 18. And she turned to prostitution once, _only _once, and never wanted to do that again. But if she did the illegal acts, Yuma wouldn't have to.

She had basic standards, at least. She would never kill (too messy). She would never sell drugs (too time consuming and borderline evil). She would never go into trafficking (too evil). She wasn't an angel in any way and she knew that, but she wouldn't call herself the devil either, though her late father might disagree with that.

Sometimes, she made the mistake of wondering what he would think of her now; daughter of a clergyman, who sold her soul to the devil and used her powers to fool the innocent, serve evil and be the best damn stripper in Kazamino. If she really mattered to him, he wouldn't have gone off the rail and killed himself and their whole family. It took a few years, but she finally managed to move from self-loathing to just loathing.

All in all though…things were pretty good. She had a family. She had Yuma. And she was giving Yuma a good life. Yuma did well in school and even got to take part in the art club after school on Tuesdays, which was perfect because it was a surprisingly good night to work the pole. Yuma was praised by her teachers and peers alike her for "spectacular, interpretive paintings of the darknesses of mankind"; she was just painting witches she'd fought, or the witches she thought they'd become. It was how she coped, and it worked well for her. Yuma got to be a (moderately) regular kid. The police and social workers liked to stop by for surprise visits sometimes when Yuma showed up to school with bruises, which was a pain in the ass (and more terrifying than Kyoko would ever admit, since it was always a bit of a guessing game to figure out what they were showing up for).

Kyoko missed Mitakihara sometimes…but now that she had someone to live for in Kazamino, it really wasn't so bad anymore.

* * *

><p>"Miki, loosen up! Roll your body, roll it!" The personal coach, Mei shouted. Sayaka had never dreamed that part of her job as a police officer, and true defender of justice, would be learning how to pole dance. But the other officer who was supposed to do this, a young beautiful officer with a few more years experience got knocked up and the department's connection would never be able to get a pregnant woman into Tomi's.<p>

"Good, practice climbing with the left leg now. You rely on your right too much." Fuck, Sayaka hated climbing with the left. She fit the pole between the outside of her left foot and inside her left knee, squeezed, and hoisted herself up. She climbed up the pole from floor to ceiling in fifteen seconds, making sure she looked sexy the entire way up.

"Great, now slide down slowly and land in jazz splits." She did it no problem.

"Show me your ground work." Sayaka dutifully rolled onto her back, felt up her sides while doing slow, sensual bicycle motion with her legs, then rolled onto all fours and moved her bum in circles.

"Get up doing Madonna." Sayaka rolled back onto her feet, opening and closing her legs so they almost resembled a butterfly preparing to fly and body rolled up.

"Get inverted and show me scorpion." She went upside down and used only her leg and stomach skin to hold her on the pole.

"Slide down and show me your hand stands." She slid down the pole and then showed how she could do the splits and move her legs in all sorts of beautiful ways while upside down. And the next forty five minutes went on like this, with the moves become more challenging, faster, and flowing together. By the end of it, Sayaka was panting but doing her best to not let it show. Her long blond wig kept falling in her face throughout the workout, which still bugged her but at least she was used to it. And this way, hopefully, no one she was trying to get information on from the club could recognize her outside of it. Plus, she totally rocked the Lady Gaga "Poker Face" look, if she did say so herself.

"So, what do you think Mei? Is she ready?" Sayaka's supervisor, Ryo asked. She and two other younger officers had been in training for the last six months, but they narrowed it down when they decided she would be best to go undercover. She was thrilled that by the age of 19, she was already going undercover! She wasn't convinced that she would be the ideal candidate to go undercover, but she had gotten pretty good at keeping secrets and pretending over the past few years. She also knew who to look out, what street names to listen for, and where to go. Being a former junkie (yes, former, she doesn't really do it anymore, seriously!) had its perks, but she would never let anyone else know that's how she knew these things.

A silence hung in the air. She had been training for fifteen hours a week on top of her normal parking cop duties. She wanted to get out of that. She wanted something more exciting. She wanted to take down bad guys who took advantage of people like her and her friends _now_.

"Yes. She's ready. Get a photographer and call Tomi." Sayaka wondered what they needed a photographer for.

* * *

><p>"Sakura, loosen up! It won't be that bad. I've heard this one's exceptionally talented from a very good friend of mine." Tomi tried fruitlessly to convince Kyoko that taking on a new "little buddy" in the club could be fun. Kyoko hated training new girls, especially ones who had never worked in clubs before. They had no idea what their stage persona would be, and they copied her exactly because they could see that she was good. They usually didn't get many of her tips, but it was enough that she couldn't take Yuma out for ice cream after a good (or bad) witch hunt.<p>

"You know what happens every. Single. Fucking. Time. Give her to someone else. I don't want some stupid newbie trying to copy my act."

"For god's sakes, look at her photos! She could never pull off the bad girl, and even she must know that. She looks way too sweet for that." It was true. Every applicant had to submit nude photos so they could see exactly what the club would be getting. This girl had long, straight blonde hair, big green eyes, and very pale skin; she looked like a very uncomfortable doll due to her nervous facial expression. She would definitely be suited to an angel personality. Kyoko didn't know why, but for some reason she didn't like her eyes or her hair. They almost didn't look right to her.

"You're the best dancer we have, Sakura and one of the most familiar with our clients. I know you can show her the ropes. I'm making sure that this girl couldn't steal your style, even if she tried." He further tried to convince. Kyoko wasn't buying any of it.

"I'll give you an hourly wage of $50 on top of your tips. And won't charge you for being late ever again."

"Ok deal."

* * *

><p>"So I won't see you after school anymore?" Kyousuke asked sadly. It had become tradition that after his classes on Thursdays, he would roll beside Sayaka on her weekly shifts at the university. Parking duty wasn't all that exciting, so it was pretty easy for him to come along without anyone getting overly upset about it.<p>

"Yeah, I've gotten a new assignment so I'm off parking duty. I'm sorry I can't give you any more details than that." She really wanted to tell them all about it; what she was excited about, what she was worried about. The three of them had become inseparable after the disaster, and it felt strange to keep secrets from them. Well, there had been four of them but Sayaka preferred not to think about _him_.

"You're actually going undercover. That's so exciting Sayaka-chan! I'm so proud of you! This is exactly what you wanted, isn't it?" Hitomi asked pleasantly.

"Well, yes and no. Again, I can't go into too many details. But this gets me closer to what I'm going for. How are your classes going? Do you have exams coming up?"

"Yes. I hate exam season. They let me take all of my classes from home, but then they make me go to such a crowded area to be tested. I'm always so worried I'll fail from claustrophobia." Hitomi never even came close to failing; she's way too smart for that. But it's never easy for her to leave her apartment, which is why they were there now. After the incident at Mitakihara Middle School, Hitomi developed major social anxiety which evolved into something like agoraphobia, something that worries Sayaka and shames her aristocratic family daily. She's probably the only sociology major Sayaka had ever heard of who is afraid of society.

"I have a lot to study for, but most of my courses are very interesting so I'll be happy to review them. Sexuality is terrible though." Kyousuke frowned. He had to take at least three science courses for his degree, so he tried choosing ones that sounded easy. He had been right about botany being a bird course, but science of human sexuality has been hilariously difficult ("Girls have three holes?"). It was conversations like these that made Sayaka glad she didn't bother trying with university and went with the police academy instead. It's not like university would have even been an option for her with her grades, but that was beside the point.

After another hour of joking and complaining about work, family, and professors, it was getting fairly late.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay and watch a movie with us Sayaka-chan? I have popcorn!" Hitomi tempted.

"Haha, no, I wouldn't want to be a third wheel on your date! You lovebirds have fun. Besides, I have a long day tomorrow and need to get up early."

"Fair enough. Good luck on your new assignment Sayaka. I think you will be great." Kyousuke smiled. Whenever she saw that smile, she remembered why she had been so in love with him all those years ago. But he and Hitomi fit together so perfectly and had been dating for a few years now. Besides, Sayaka couldn't deny that Hitomi needed Kyousuke much more than she did, and Kyousuke loved the feeling of being needed by somebody. Their relationship was a bit dysfunctional in ways and Sayaka still felt lonely sometimes, but this was better for everyone.

"Thanks guys. I really needed the pep talk. Good night!" And as she turned to leave, she heard the familiar click of Hitomi's apartment door behind her.

* * *

><p>"So I won't see you after school anymore?" Yuma asked curiously. She didn't care much at this point, since she knew she would always see Kyoko eventually…usually.<p>

"Not for the next few weeks, no. I need to train this new bitch. And it looks like I might be getting another contract soon, if what I hear from around the club is true." A politician had been being blackmailed by an anonymous culprit recently, and one or her reputable-for-being-unreputable friends had let her know that he'd passed on her business name.

"Think she's going to try to steal your tips like the last one did?"

"I'd like to see her try." Kyoko smiled mischievously, showing her characteristic fang. Yuma smiled.

"Well, it'll be nice being able to stay in the art room more days after school. And maybe I can get some more studying done for my exams. Are you sure you'll be ok to hunt witches after all of that?"

"I'll make it work. I've fought and won under worse conditions."

"You've also fought and lost under better conditions." Yuma joked. "Luckily, you had the young, prodigal me to come and save you! Do you like having arms and legs, Onii-chan?"

"Yeah, yeah, stop being so full of yourself you little punk." Kyoko said while ruffling Yuma's hair.

"Stop messing up my hair! You know how much time it takes for me to get it to even look presentable. Just because you like having crazy hair, doesn't mean I do too."

"Well, I think this matches your magical girl outfit better, Miss Poofy Pants."

"I was seven when I picked my outfit, so shut up!"

"Is that any way to speak to your elders?" Kyoko laughed as she pounced on Yuma to tickle her.

"No! No! Stop! You're gonna make me pee!" Yuma screamed angrily between laughs.

When they finally settled down (only after Kyoko became legitimately concerned that Yuma might make a mess on the carpet), Kyoko made them a quick dinner of noodle stir fry.

"Are you done your homework?"

"Finished it over lunch and before you came to pick me up, like always."

"How's your soul gem looking?"

Yuma pulled hers out, a deep forest green. It was usually a bright lime green.

"It could definitely be cleared up a bit. How's yours?"

"Pretty much the same." Kyoko had checked earlier and saw that her bright blood red was a deep crimson.

"We have two grief seeds left for the two of us, which can keep us going for a bit but they won't last and I think we'll both be busy over the next few weeks. You feel up for hunting a bit tonight? I bet those familiars from two weeks ago must be witches by now." Yuma speculated.

"I bet you're right, kiddo. Make sure you have everything packed up for school tomorrow and we can head out."

"Don't call me kiddo. I'm thirteen years old. Almost as old as you when we first met!"

"And I was a kiddo until I was twenty, so you're still a kiddo."

"You're twenty now."

"Exactly, so I'm not a kiddo anymore."

"What'll happen when I turn twenty then? Will you finally acknowledge that I'm an adult?"

"By that point, I'll have only stopped being a kiddo when I turned twenty-five."

"You're the worst, Kyo!"

* * *

><p>"No!" Sayaka woke up with a start with tears in her eyes. She looked around frantically, recognizing her bed in her one-bedroom apartment and the familiar sound of her heart pounded in her ears. It had been the Madoka nightmare again.<p>

_"Homura-chan is up there! I need to go save her!" Madoka shouted terrified. The strange, root-like looking monsters were in the corner, devouring the corpse of a student they could no longer recognize. Sayaka had never even heard of anything like them on any of the weird nature documentaries her mother loved to watch. These things ate people, swelled up, and exploded leaving nothing behind. There was no trace of human bodies anywhere. _

_ "Homura-chan is our friend too, so we all need to go save her together!" Sayaka shouted back, holding up her makeshift bat made of a diamond rope she and Hitomi climbed up. She was the only one with a weapon and had fended off a few of the strange monsters already. Madoka would be eaten on her own without Sayaka and her bat. "We can take on anything!" Sayaka cheered._

_ Madoka nodded and turned to run while Hitomi reluctantly followed. She didn't want to be alone in this odd checkered pandemonium. It didn't take them long before they heard what sounded like a battle and maniacal laughter. _

_ "They must be in there." Madoka said, with a determination in her yes that Sayaka had never seen before. Sayaka nodded and they approached the door, Madoka slightly ahead of her. _

_ Without warning, there was a loud crash and a wall exploded. Sayaka jumped back, shielding her eyes and Hitomi from the debris. After the dust settled, Sayaka pulled her arm away from her face, noticing that it was covered in blood. But she didn't feel hurt. She wasn't injured. Where was the blood from? Oh my god, where is the blood coming from? She barely heard the sound of herself screaming over the ringing in her ears._

_ She noticed just inches in front of her, Madoka lying on the ground, eyes wide and terrified but unseeing, and a large piece of wood protruding from her open chest, blood and innards leaking out. _

_ "Madoka!" Sayaka screamed, hoping, praying that her friend was ok, was not dead, was just minorly hurt and would be ok and back to her normal, cheerful self tomorrow. She was ok. She had to be ok, right? That wasn't her blood. Those weren't her intestines. _

_ Faintly, in the back of her mind, she could recognize Homura in the corner of her eye falling to her knees with a look of pure disbelief, reaching what looked like a large watch on her wrist and suddenly disappearing, never to be seen again. _

After vomiting in the bathroom, Sayaka got up from her knees and looked at her reflection. She looked awful, much paler than normal. Whenever she was stressed about anything, she had the nightmare which just made things worse. She slid the bathroom mirror to the side to find her pills behind it and popped an anti-anxiety pill in her mouth, washing it down with a swig of the vodka she hid with the cleaning products under the sink. It calmed her down, and the combination sometimes made her see beautiful colours.

"I can't be thinking like this. Tomorrow, I need to be on my A-game." Sayaka said to herself while taking deep breaths. She would go to the station at 8:00 to get instructions for her assignment and to look at the prepared profiles of criminals the force knew frequented the club. She had memorized theirs faces, what groups they were associated with, and their criminal records. But she had to look at them again, just to be sure.

At noon, she would go to Tomi's for the first time for an interview. It sounded like it was more of a formality, but she still had to impress. Then she would have to show a dance, one of the dozens Mei had choreographed for her on the pole. She had to be perfect.

"I can do this. I can do this. I'll just go back to bed, and I will be able to do this." As she walked back into the bedroom, she noticed the lights on her alarm clock blaring "3:42". There wasn't much time left, but it was still better than nothing.

"What happened then never happened again. It was a one-off event and will never happen again. I am safe, my friends are safe, and this will never happen again. If anything like this ever happens again, I'll know what to do to keep them safe. We'll be safe. We are safe."

* * *

><p>"No!" Kyoko woke up with a start with tears in her eyes. She looked around frantically, recognizing her bed in her one-bedroom apartment and the familiar sound of her heart pounded in her ears. It had been the Mami nightmare again.<p>

"_Mami, this witch is way too big, we can't fight it!" Kyoko yelled to the buxom blonde standing on another damaged building. She was panting hard, clutching her arm which had most likely been broken. _

"_We can't leave it, Sakura-san. Look at it! It will destroy everything and kill thousands of people!" She yelled back. Kyoko couldn't help but remember mirthlessly how only a year ago, she and Mami were convinced they could defeat a Walpurgisnacht together. Now, with the two of them and a magical girl whose entire wish was based on helping Kyoko against it, they had no chance. _

"_It's going to kill us! We're going to die! We need to pull back and run! We can still get out of here alive if we leave now!" Kyoko jumped over to the building Mami was standing on. _

"_Please Mami. We just started talking again. We don't have a shot in hell of beating it, or even holding it off long enough for more people to evacuate. We've done all that we can. Please. I…I don't want to lose you again…I don't want to lose my family again…" Kyoko held Mami's uninjured hand. She had never been this open about her feelings before. She hated it. She liked being closed off. It was safer._

_Mami looked at her with tears in her eyes. She squeezed Kyoko's hand for a moment before letting it go. _

"_I'm glad we've been talking again too…Kyoko. I've missed you much more than you realize. But I'm sorry, I can't leave this witch to destroy the city. You can leave if you have to though. I won't hold it against you." Mami smiled kindly with that sad look in her eyes. Kyoko hated that face, but it seemed so often that that was only facial expression she really had. _

"_Mami…" _

"_KYOKO ONII-CHAN!" Yuma screamed from another building. She was terrified. She had only been a magical girl for ten days, she was seven years old, and she was up against a mega witch. _

"_KYOKO ONII-CHAN, YUMA IS SCARED!" She screamed. She had tears and snot streaming down her face. She had never been this scared before, not even when that witch ripped her parents apart. _

_It was like slow motion for Kyoko, watching the monstrous witch slowly rotate upside down beneath what looked like a large gear, laughing its chillingly human laugh. The face with that overly large smile finally turned to face Yuma and stopped. It just stood still, laughing. Kyoko knew what was going to happen. _

"_YUMA!" She screamed as she darted to the next building, grabbing her just in time to avoid another building being flung at the exact spot she had been standing just moments before. They escaped, but Kyoko's right arm was shattered. _

"_Kyoko onii-chan! Yuma's sorry, Yuma was scared! Please don't leave Yuma, she's sorry!" She cried. Kyoko just looked at her, with no expression just thinking 'she's safe. She's safe. Thank God she's safe'. _

_Kyoko turned back to Mami, who had prepared another Tiro Finale, firing it at the witch's face. She hit it dead on, but it did nothing but make the witch laugh louder. Mami started to cry and looked at Kyoko with a pleading expression. _

_Kyoko looked down, seeing the little green-haired girl who had come into her life just twelve days ago. It felt like it was the first time God had truly blessed her in a long time. Her blue eyes were teary but focused, brows furrowed in concentration as she worked on knitting together the bones of Kyoko's arms. She was so inexperienced, so young; she didn't stand a chance, even with Kyoko protecting her. Kyoko looked to Mami again. A single, silent tear fell from her eye. _

"_I'm sorry…" she said in a quiet voice to Mami. She knew she couldn't hear her, but she could see from reading her lips what she'd said. Mami cried harder, but nodded and turned back to the witch. She prepared another set of muskets. Kyoko had her answer, and Mami had hers. _

_Kyoko grabbed Yuma, surprising her younger protectee and ran. She ran as fast as she could from the witch with Yuma slung over her good shoulder. She didn't look back, not even when she heard a series of crashing buildings from right around where Mami was standing. She just kept running. _

"It's fine. You're safe. You're here. Nothing's going to hurt you. You're not alone. You're ok." Yuma held her, rocking back and forth gently.

"Shh, you're ok. I'm here. I've got you. You're safe." Yuma chanted gently, a mantra they had both repeated to each other many nights before. The life of a magical girl was never easy, even though it had brought them so close over the years. They both lost families from magic and gained new, arguably better ones.

After a few minutes, Kyoko calmed down. She realized she couldn't remember when Yuma stopped talking in third person.

"Thanks…sorry about that." She said pulling away, wiping the tears from her eyes. She hated it when Yuma had to comfort her. It should always be the other way around. The kid was twelve.

"It's ok onii-chan…it happens to both of us. Which one was it this time?"

"The Mami dream." Kyoko said after a moment. Yuma just nodded, familiar with that one herself even though her nightmare generally focused on the witch itself and not the blond-haired girl she didn't get the chance to know. But Kyoko had told her the whole story and knew how close they had been. She also knew that she owed everything to Mami, because without her, her big sister who saved and gave her a new life never would have survived the murder-suicide of her family. Yuma hugged her again.

"Think you can go back to sleep, or should we just get up? We might be able to hunt another witch or two before school starts." Kyoko contemplated the offer. Fighting might help her get her mind off of this, but she was still tired from their fights last night. They got three grief seeds, an especially good night.

"No, we're fine for grief seeds and I don't think my head would be in the fight. I think we're more likely to just end up getting hurt. Thanks though. Let's go back to sleep."

They lay back down, still holding onto each other. It always hurt, thinking that in order for her to gain one family member, she had to lose another. But she still thanked God every night that she had Yuma.

She fell asleep to the familiar sound of Yuma breathing next to her in a disturbed, dream-filled sleep.

* * *

><p>This was going to be a bad day and Sayaka knew it. When she got to the station that morning, Ryo saw her pouring over the information and decided that she was probably just psyching herself out more by reading it "for what has to be at least the eightieth time" he said (<em>Magumi Akihiro, Drug Dealer; Hiroshi Hideki, Loan Shark; Atahiko Osamu, Trafficker; Dresden Ophelia, Various<em>). Then, her appointment got put off until 2:00 pm so she had too much time to just hang out at the office, so she got put on park duty until noon.

She walked around a park near Kazamino High. It was known for having quite a few drug dealers (some of whom she remembered personally, and locked away personally), but they weren't stupid enough to be out and about this early in the day. So most likely, it was just going to be her walking around the park for a few hours. But at least it was a nice park, drug dealers aside.

She fed a few ducks for fun (oh, if only the taxpayers could see what their money was going towards). She almost got one to eat out of her hand, which was kind of cool.

She came up to some kids who were playing on skateboards. She asked if they were supposed to be in school, but they were on spare. It was surprising that they weren't studying, but she wasn't one to judge. There was a reason she never went to university, after all.

She did a few tricks with them and they put her photo on Instagram tagged as #coolestcopever which she was happy to accept. She wasn't undercover yet, and might as well enjoy her easy day until she had to start.

She checked her watch and saw that it was 11:30. _Only twenty minutes before I should start heading back…_she thought with some dread.

She was walking by a sweets vendor when she couldn't help but notice a particularly striking young woman. She looked to be around her age, with long, wild red hair. She appeared to be in a rush.

_I wish my hair looked like that_ Sayaka thought to herself absentmindedly. She lazily watched her for a bit, admiring her. _She really is gorgeous. _

She noticed her subtly take one of the fried snacks. _Oh shit, you've done it now! _ Sayaka thought excitedly.

"Excuse me, ma'am." She said boldly. She had to uphold that hand of the law after all.

The red-head looked at her with a blank expression, but she could sense something behind those crimson eyes. It wasn't fear, more like annoyance or hatred.

"Yes officer?" She asked, innocently.

"I noticed you took that pastry, but you didn't pay for it. Could you give the man the 400 yen for that?" _For god's sakes, it's only 400 yen woman. You don't look like your homeless or anything. _

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I paid for it." _Oh hell, she did? I look like an ass now. _

"No she didn't." The vendor said saucily. _Phew! _

"Ma'am, please pay for the pastry or else I'll have to write you a ticket."

"For a 400 fucking yen pastry?! Come ON, don't you have anything better to do with your time?!" _Not yet, no. But this is still important! _

"Any theft, no matter how small, is theft. Please pay for the pastry or return it, or else I'll have to give you a ticket ma'am."

"For fuck's sakes, it's 400 god damn yen!" _Petty criminal and a filthy mouth…_

"Exactly, so please pay it ma'am."

There was a moment of tense silence where Sayaka and the woman just looked at each other.

"Do you take credit or debit?" The red-haired woman asked impatiently.

"Do you see a bank machine?" The vendor replied with the same spunky tone as before.

"Officer, I just spent all my money on my little sister's school supplies. Please understand, our parents died a few years ago and I've been doing my best to make ends meet. It was stupid of me to do this. I just really miss having any sort of luxury, I do everything for my sister. But I understand that this was wrong of me to do…" _That sounds like a load of bull to me. _

"I smell BS!" The vendor snapped.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, but I can't forgive any theft that I saw. I'll have to write you a ticket ma'am." _Even I feel like this is getting ridiculous._

"Oh come on, I said I was sorry! I'm sorry park guy!" She apologized hurriedly, clearly trying to get out of the situation.

"Too bad, I want my money."

"I told you I don't have any! If you want, I can go to the ATM and bring some back in ten minutes."

"Like you'll do that! I want money now!"

"Well I don't have any!"

"Then give me back my pastry!"

"Fine! Here!" She said as she took a big bite and handed it back. _Why would you do that?! Why?! _

"Officer! Do something about this!" _. _

"Ma'am, could I see your ID please?"

"Why do you need it?!"

"I need to write you a ticket ma'am."

"Well what if I just don't give it to you?" She looked like she felt like she had just won the match. _Are you for real, woman? _

"Then I'll have to arrest you for theft and refusal to obey an officer. Please show me your ID." The red-head's face fell at that, as she reluctantly pulled out her wallet, throwing it unnecessarily harshly to Sayaka.

Sayaka looked through the wallet, but noticed something odd. _Oh yeah, jackpot!_

"Why do you have two driver's licenses with your photo but different names ma'am?" The red head's face paled and paused for a moment.

"Um…well…remember when I told you how my parents had died? Well, they died before I turned 18. I had to get a job to support me and my sister, or else we'd have to go to a foster home and I just didn't think we'd do well there. And well…the place I needed to work to be able to support us needed me to be at least 18 so I got a fake ID…" _I don't know why, but I can tell she's telling the truth. _

"When did your parents die?"

"Six years ago. In the Mitakihara disaster." _Oh my god…_

"Ah…I see. Well, ma'am I can see from your ID with the younger birthdate that you are over 18 years of age now, yes…" Sayaka quickly glanced down at the ID "Sakura Kyoko?"

"Yes, I am now. I don't even use the older ID anymore, really."

"Well Sakura-san, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to confiscate your fraudulent forms of identification. I'll also have to write you a ticket for the theft…" _I feel like shit now. _

"Please officer…" She looked at her badge and saw her name "Miki! You can write me a ticket for the pastry for any amount you want, I'll accept that!"

"I'm glad to hear that but I still need those IDs. Have a nice day Sakura-san." Sayaka nodded and handed her a ticket for 1,000 yen. _If I didn't have that vendor watching me…I don't know. But what if she's lying? It's better this way, I know it is. _

"Excuse me, Officer? Who's going to pay for that pastry?" _Oh yeah…_

"Ah, my apologies sir. Here you are." Sayaka said while paying him.

"Have a nice day sir, ma'am." Sayaka nodded to them and left. She absent-mindedly looked to her watch.

_Shit, I need to get going. _

* * *

><p>This was going to be a bad day and Kyoko knew it. She woke up with a sense of dread, her troubled sleep the night before not helping any. When she glanced to her alarm clock, it was 10:45 am. <em>Shit! How the fuck did I oversleep by that much? I need to be completely ready in less than 15 minutes to get there and I haven't had a shower in three days!<em>

She quickly looked beside her, ready to shake Yuma awake and get her to school. But the bed was empty, except for a note:

_Good morning Onii-chan! _

_ I knew that you didn't have anything until noon today, so I figured you deserved a day to sleep in. Don't worry, I'll get ready and to school on time on my own because I can be an adult too! _

_ I completely forgot that I needed to pay the art club for some more painting supplies, so I took 5,000 yen from your wallet. I hope you don't mind. _

_ Hope you have a nice morning Onii-chan! See you tonight! I love you! _

_ -Yuma_

Kyoko grumbled at her little sister's good intentions. _Fuck…I can't get ready in that amount of time. _She picked up her phone and noticed 8 missed calls, all from Tomi. _Super fuck!_

"Good morning Sakura-san, I was wondering if we could move the time for the new girl from noon to 11:00?" –Call from Tomi's new secretary at 8:00 am

"Sakura, where are you? Could we move it from 11:00 to 11:30?" –Call from 8:23 am

"Sakura, we're meeting at noon again." -8:28 am

"Sakura we're meeting at 10:30." -8:45 am

"Sakura, you're not responding, we're meeting at noon again." -9:07 am

"Sakura, call me! Does 12:30 work for you?" -9:35 am

"Sakura, please answer your phone! We're doing noon again." -10:02 am

"I sent the candidate the wrong time this morning. We're meeting at 2:00" -10:14 am _Thank you God! _

Still, she wanted to run a few errands before meeting this new girl. She clearly had to run to the ATM now thanks to a certain someone. First though, she'd call Tomi to confirm the 2:00 time…

After doing that, having a shower, shaving _everything_ and getting the base for her makeup on, she noticed that it was already almost 11:30. _Son of a bitch…_

Running through the shortcut in the park took no time at all. As she did that, she felt that nasty, gnarling grumble from her empty stomach that she was all too familiar with. _Fuck, I forgot to eat. And I'm supposed to be showing the noob pole tricks today too! I can't do that on an empty stomach. _

She quickly noticed a vendor selling pastries who looked distracted by other customers. _Well, back to the good ol' days. _She quickly snatched an unattended one.

"Excuse me, ma'am." A voice said from behind her. Kyoko turned around and saw a young woman who looked no older than herself with a pale face, blue eyes, blue hair, and blue uniform that couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a police officer's uniform. _Shit! Ok, it's fine, you've dealt with worse. Just play it cool._

"Yes officer?" She asked, innocently.

"I noticed you took that pastry, but you didn't pay for it. Could you give the man the 400 yen for that?" _It's only 400 yen woman. Don't you have anything better to do with your time?_

"I'm not sure what you're talking about. I paid for it."Kyoko said, noticing that the vendor's attention had been caught. She made her trade-mark sultry face to the man, hoping to charm him out of making trouble. _Nothing like going for a man's ego. _

"No she didn't." The vendor said saucily. _Fuck, he's gay! Or greedy. Or married. Or..  
><em>

"Ma'am, please pay for the pastry or else I'll have to write you a ticket." _Damn it Yuma!_

"For a 400 fucking yen pastry?! Come ON, don't you have anything better to do with your time?!"

"Any theft, no matter how small, is theft. Please pay for the pastry or return it, or else I'll have to give you a ticket ma'am." _Oh, well aren't you a saintly protector of justice?_

"For fuck's sakes, it's 400 god damn yen!"

"Exactly, so please pay it ma'am." _Damn, I walked right into that one…_

There was a moment of tense silence where Kyoko and the officer just looked at each other.

"Do you take credit or debit?" Kyoko asked impatiently to the vendor.

"Do you see a bank machine?" The vendor replied with the same tone as before. _I get it, you're mad. Stop being such an asshole. Ok, pull the guilt card. You've got plenty of that to dish out Kyoko. _

"Officer, I just spent all my money on my little sister's school supplies. Please understand, our parents died a few years ago and I've been doing my best to make ends meet. It was stupid of me to do this. I just really miss having any sort of luxury, I do everything for my sister. But I understand that this was wrong of me to do…" _It's technically true… _

"I smell BS!" The vendor snapped. _IT'S TECHNICALLY TRUE!_

"I'm sorry for your loss, but unfortunately I can't forgive any theft that I saw. I'll have to write you a ticket ma'am…" The officer said without much conviction. _Ok look, see? Neither of us wants to be here? Just move along and I'll get out of everyone's way._

"Oh come on, I said I was sorry! I'm sorry park guy!" She apologized hurriedly.

"Too bad, I want my money." _It's 400 fucking yen!_

"I told you I don't have any! If you want, I can go to the ATM and bring some back in ten minutes."

"Like you'll do that! I want money now!" The vendor snapped again. _Fuck, you are really starting to piss me off!_

"Well I don't have any!"

"Then give me back my pastry!"

"Fine! Here!" She said as she took a big bite and handed it back. _Oh fuck, I probably shouldn't have done that._

"Officer! Do something about this!" _Ah shit. _

"Ma'am, could I see your ID please?" _What?! Really?!_

"Why do you need it?!"

"I need to write you a ticket ma'am." _Oh come on!_

"Well what if I just don't give it to you?"

"Then I'll have to arrest you ma'am for theft and refusal to obey an officer. Please show me your ID." The red-head's face fell at that, as she reluctantly pulled out her wallet, throwing it at the officer. _Shit, I should have just kept my damn mouth shut…_

The officer looked through the wallet, but paused and raised one eyebrow sceptically.

"Why do you have two driver's licenses with your photo but different names ma'am?" The red head's face paled and paused for a moment. _Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…_

"Um…well…remember when I told you how my parents had died? Well, they died before I turned 18. I had to get a job to support me and my sister, or else we'd have to go to a foster home and I just didn't think we'd do well there. And well…the place I needed to work to be able to support us needed me to be at least 18 so I got a fake ID…" _That's completely true. _

"When did your parents die?" The officer asked with a look of sadness in her eyes. _I can recognize that look anywhere…a Mitakihara survivor._

"Six years ago. In the Mitakihara disaster." _Not true, but for Yuma it was close enough to then and it's most believable so…_

"Ah…I see. Well, ma'am I can see from your ID with the younger birthdate that you are over 18 years of age now, yes…" Sayaka quickly glanced down at the ID "Sakura Kyoko?"

"Yes, I am now. I don't use it anymore, really."

"Well Sakura-san, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to confiscate your fraudulent forms of identification. I'll also have to write you a ticket for the theft…" _No! Shit! Come on!_

"Please officer…" She looked at her badge and saw her name "Miki! You can write me a ticket for the pastry for any amount you want, I'll accept that!"

"I'm glad to hear that but I still need those IDs. Have a nice day Sakura-san." Officer Miki nodded and handed her a ticket for 1,000 yen. _Seriously? You wasted all my time for that? Well, at least it's not expensive…_

"Excuse me, Officer? Who's going to pay for that pastry?" _Really? You're still on that? Chinsy bastard._

"Ah, my apologies sir. Here you are." The officer said while paying him. _Goody two shoes. _

"Have a nice day sir, ma'am." Officer Miki nodded to them and left.

Kyoko stood there dumbfounded. That actually just happened.

"If it's any consolation, I don't want you thrown in jail. I just wanted the money for my stuff." _Fuck you asshole._

Kyoko quickly checked the time on her cell phone.

_Shit, I need to get going. _

* * *

><p>Sayaka arrived at Tomi's out of breath. She still wasn't very familiar with putting in coloured contacts, but everyone figured that the less they could make her look like her, the better. After putting on the wig, contacts, and makeup, she barely recognized herself. She had a cute face, as people generally told her, and frequently had a sort of impish expression. With her new look, any trace of that expression was gone; she looked like a china doll. The makeup made her eyes look bigger and lips look fuller. Her cheek bones were contoured and brows perfectly drawn in. She didn't even know she could look like this. And she was grateful that she didn't sweat too much on the jog in, because she would be giving an awful first impression if she came in with smudgy make-up.<p>

She hadn't had time to finish all her bureaucratic duties yet. She still needed to hand in the fake ID she found and had to write up the report.

Looking around her, she could tell that this wasn't the main part of the bar. It looked more like it was a dance studio with mirrors lining every wall and a pale tiki wooden floor. There were 8 poles throughout the room. _This must be where they do their extra dance lessons._

"Hi, I'm so sorry I'm late! My hair was being very stubborn today." She joked to Tomi. Strippers had to care about their appearance, right?

"That's fine; Sakura isn't ready yet. I know you're new to the industry, but just so you know if you're late again, I'm going to charge you." He said noncommittally. Sayaka was confused.

"I don't understand…"

"Thanks for waiting boss. I've had such a shit day, you have no idea…" A familiar voice said from behind Sayaka. _Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…_

The stunning redhead walked with a sort of confidence that left Sayaka speechless. She had full makeup on, and was wearing an attractive black leather jacket with skinny jeans. Her black stilettos made her legs look like they went on for miles. Her dark smoky eye makeup accentuated her uniquely beautiful eyes, while her pale pink lips underplayed them. The focus was definitely on her eyes. _Oh my God Sayaka, stop thinking these things, you're working with her and gave her a ticket today! _

"Not a problem, Sakura. I guess I promised you that you wouldn't get late charges for doing this…" He said, slightly agitated. _Am I really that much of a bother, guys?_

"Alright new girl. What song do you want?" Sakura asked while looking through my ipod. _I hope she doesn't judge my taste in music…_

"Would you rather see artistic or strip club?" Sakura and Tomi both raised an eyebrow at Sayaka's question. _Was that the wrong thing to ask? Shit. _

"Show us artistic…" Tomi said, with what may have been a bit of interest in is voice. _Please be interest, please be interest…_

"Can you play 'Rads des Shicksals' by E Nomine?" Sayaka had seen a beautiful performance by a woman in Moscow to this song. Of course, it was actually a pole fail video because the pole fell down, but it wasn't her fault.

Sakura nodded and found the song while Sayaka walked up to the pole, then faced away from it.

"You ready?" Sakura asked. Sayaka nodded. _Just stay calm, you've practiced this so many times. _

The song opened by a man speaking German. Sayaka didn't move. As the high piano notes began to play, she bent her back backwards so her shoulders were against it, moving her leg up and back to stroke along the pole. She let her hands run slowly, lazily, lustily along the contours of her body before they came up behind the pole where her shoulder was resting against. Once the female vocals started, she brought both legs up, looking like she was walking up stairs before she settled with her legs about forty five degrees from the pole, cycling her legs slowly. _Gah, this hurts my abs every time! _

She pulled her legs into the pole and moved her body up so her core was facing the ground. She reached her arms behind her again to show how far she could be her back. _Ow ow ow ow…._

She used where her arms were gripping against the pole to let go with her legs, trying to do a sort of windmill with her legs. _This would look so much cooler if this pole could spin. _

Her feet landed against the ground as she did a pirouette before starting to climb the pole. Once she got near the top, she gripped the pole between her thighs with one leg over the other, looking like she was sitting in a chair. She moved the upper part of her body to the front of the pole, looking like she was bowing. _Mei said this would stop hurting my thighs by now…lying bitch. _

She unfurled her body and went into an inverted hang, allowing herself to slowly slide down the pole. Her skin against the pole created a squeaking sound as she went down. _I hope they didn't hear that._

Landing against the ground in a hand stand, she showed how she could come close to doing the splits in both directions before bending fully backwards, showing how she could come very close to touching her feet to her head. _OW! I think I'm stuck. _

Carefully trying to conceal her difficulty getting out of that pose, she flung her legs back to the front so she could get up again. Barely avoiding hitting her head against the pole as she got up (_I hope they didn't notice that either)_ she continued her dance. By the end of the four minute song, she was trying to not breathe too hard. _Just play it cool…_

Both Sakura and Tomi had unreadable expressions on their faces and looked at each other. They seemed to be having a telepathic conversation. _Please be good thoughts…_

"What's your name, honey?" Tomi asked.

"Yamasaki Rin." Sayaka had rehearsed that many times. It was a unique enough that it sounded real, but generic enough that it would be hard to find out Yamasaki Rin the stripper didn't really exist.

"Well Yamasaki, welcome to the club." Tomi smiled.

* * *

><p>Kyoko arrived at Tomi's out of breath. She couldn't believe how awful a day she'd been having. At least the appointment with the new girl had been pushed back two hours. Tomi recently hired an attractive young new personal assistant named Sango, who was horribly disorganized. Some of the strippers joked she was as bright as a mango, even though the names didn't really rhyme, and guessed she slept with Tomi to get her job. Kyoko knew that the poor girl was actually the daughter of one of Tomi's potential business partners and had been struggling to get a job due to her dyslexia. Sango's dyslexia saved Kyoko's sorry late ass today though.<p>

"Sakura! Sorry for the confusion this morning. Are you ready yet?" Tomi asked with a hint of disdain in his voice, both for her assistant and Kyoko's appearance. He could see that her hair was messy and her makeup wasn't ready yet.

"Just give me a sec-" Her phone rang. It was the generic ring tone, so it wasn't Yuma or anyone from the club. _Who the hell spams people during the day? _Kyoko thought annoyed. From checking the number, she recognized it as Yuma's school. _That's odd…_

"I have to take this." She said hurriedly as she walked into the back.

"Hello, Sakura Kyoko here." She greeted quickly. She guessed it was probably Yuma calling, but it seemed odd that she called her from the school phone. Kyoko bought her a cell phone last year for exactly this purpose (and telling her when she found a witch while she was out, of course).

"Hello Sakura-san. This is Miss Kurasaki, Yuma's art teacher. I was wondering if you would be able to come in some time to discuss Yuma's performance in my class." _Huh? I thought Yuma was good at art. _

"Sure, if you need me to. Is there a problem?"

"Oh no, not at all! I apologize if it came across that way. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I wanted to discuss a potential opportunity for her, but I wanted to talk to you about it privately before telling her about it, in case it wasn't possible for her to go for whatever reason. I wouldn't want to get her hopes up." _Ok? I wonder what this is. _Kyoko thought curiously while trying to multitask between listening and doing her makeup.

"Makes sense to me. I'm busy for the next few hours, but I think I can come over after school hours. Will you be there at 4:00?" Kyoko wasn't sure if she'd be able to do that herself, but the curiosity was killing her. Her shift didn't start until 7:00 anyways.

"Wonderful. I will see you then. Thank you Kyoko-san!" They said their farewells and hung up. After quickly putting on makeup so the new girl could see what a lot of the girls looked like on a typical night, she came out. It was five minutes after 2:00.

"Thanks for waiting boss. I've had such a shit day, you have no idea." She grumbled. And then noticed the new girl standing right there. _Well shit; I look irresponsible now. _

She couldn't help but look over the girl. She looked exactly like her photo, except her hair was a bit more windblown this time around. Her blue bando top complemented her skin nicely, but didn't seem quite right with her eyes. _Her eyes still don't seem right to me either. I don't know why. _

Her green short-shorts worked with everything though, as well as her aqua blue ballerina heels. _I wouldn't have picked shoes quite like that, but to each their own, I guess. As long as she can dance. _

"Not a problem, Sakura. I guess I promised you that you wouldn't get late charges for doing this…" He said, slightly agitated. She could read the hidden message behind it: "You're going to be late every time now, aren't you? I wish I didn't make that deal."

She noticed the new girl's ipod sitting on the ground near her purse and picked it up, beginning to scroll through it. _Classical music and One Direction? This girl has an even stranger taste in music than Yuma._

"Alright new girl. What song do you want?" _Bahaha, I hope she dances to "What makes you beautiful"! I wanna see if she pulls it off or not._

"Would you rather see artistic or strip club?" She asked, the first thing Kyoko had ever heard her say. _Her voice sounds familiar. It's probably nothing. But interesting question…she might be good._

"Show us artistic." Tomi said. _Great minds think alike, eh boss?_

"Can you play "Rads des Schiksals" by E Nomine?" _What the hell kind of name is that? _

Kyoko nodded and found the song while the girl walked to one of the poles to face away from it. _She has a nice silhouette and a great ass. Good starts to working here…_

"You ready?" Kyoko asked. The new girl nodded, so Kyoko hit play.

The song started with a man speaking in a language she didn't recognize, and the girl just stood there. _You're gonna have to do better than that._

Once some soprano notes on a piano started playing, the girl began to bend backwards, tracing her hands along the contours of her body. It wasn't an advanced pole move in any way, but the sensuality of her actions caused Kyoko's breath to hitch in her throat.

Kyoko had admitted a few years ago that she…appreciated feminine beauty more than masculine. She wasn't sure if it was genetic, environmental in that she was surrounded by kind-hearted women and pig-headed men, or if it was some deep-seeded desire to make her clergyman father as ashamed of her as possible. Of course, part of his teachings were to be more accepting of homosexuality, but she would never know if he would have been upset for his own daughter swinging for the other team.

As a female vocalist began to sing, the new girl started showing what she could do. She immediately went inverted, holding her body away from the pole. She already proved that she had more strength than a lot of the other girls did, frankly. Her body moved in acrobatic ways perfectly in time with the music, showcasing her strength, rhythm, and flexibility. Kyoko was almost feeling her mind slipping to dirty places. _She looks great except for her eyes and hair. What the hell is it that I don't like about her eyes and hair?_

The girl's skin made a painful sounding squeak as she moved down the pole (_Meh, the music will drown that out_), but she continued to dance nonetheless, clearly undeterred. As she bent her body almost completely backwards (_Holy shit!_), she kicked her legs back to stand up next to the pole (_Watch your head there_). She continued with her dance, some of the moves that clearly would have been more spectacular had she had a spinning pole instead of a stationary one (_Does she not know that the pole five feet away from her spins?_), but they were impressive and wonderfully executed nonetheless. Even Kyoko, who was by far the best dancer at the club was impressed.

After the song was over, the girl was clearly trying to keep her breath in check. Kyoko admired the effort. She and Tomi looked at each other, but after having known each other for so long they could understand that the other one voted yes to hire her.

"What's your name, honey?" Tomi asked the new girl.

"Yamasaki Rin." She answered quickly.

"Well Yamasaki, welcome to the club."

* * *

><p>AN: Thanks for reading this everyone! I want to give credit where it's due. I got the idea to continue the Oriko Magica timeline from jackkel dragon, whose story is great! I would definitely recommend reading it, and I want to thank jackkel for letting me loosely use their idea!<p>

I originally wanted this to be a oneshot, but I can tell that this is going to be waaayyy too long (I think I'm a tenth done this max; maybe I can try doing this for NanoWrimo? I've never entered that before but always wanted to). I'm nervous I won't finish this, because I have done that with every single other non-oneshot story that I've written. I drive myself crazy, but in some cases (like my South Park one), I just can't write the characters right anymore or in others (my early day Inuyasha ones…yeah…) I cringe when I see how I wrote them.

I want to apologize if there are any cultural errors in this story. The way that the stripping industry works is based on the Canadian industry (no, I don't work in it but I've had family who've audited them and friends who've worked in it so they told me how it works). I do pole dance, so that's how I know about all the moves. As for Sayaka as a cop, I know how long it takes to graduate the police academy in Canada (could very easily be different in Japan) and as for how going undercover works, that's totally based on movies I've watched, so that could VERY easily be wrong.

This story has quickly been getting bigger and bigger. Originally, Kyoko wasn't a hit man or anything, just a stripper. Sayaka wasn't an addict at any point (you'll have to bear with me for the next few chapters; I swear I'll explain why I think that happened) before, but she was now. I honestly have debated a lot about Sayaka's past. After (re-)reading Oriko Magica (again), I found out just how traumatized Hitomi was, and how easy it would be to blame Sayaka for Madoka's death. And of course, adding in those two details completely changed how the story was going to go.

If you notice any plot holes, please don't be afraid to let me know! There is one that I know is in there, but that's foreshadow for now ;) However, if anything hasn't made sense, please let me know and I'll try to clear it up in the next few chapters! I'm trying to make, what I think, is a realistic continuation of Oriko Magica so if anyting is clearly wrong (which it easily could be), I'd love to try to work it out.

Also, this is rated M because it's going to be a smutfest starting next chapter (and honestly, my first attempt at smut; fingers crossed I'm decent!). You have been warned!

Thanks for reading this so far! Please feel free to drop a review or let me know if you have any ideas for the story!


	2. Chapter 2

The walk to the school was mostly silent. Kyoko regretted agreeing to meet Yuma's teacher today, but she was curious and patience was never a virtue of hers. And luckily, the new girl wasn't too much of a chatter…but Kyoko had a bad feeling that she could be if she let her.

"Alright rookie, there are a few rules to working with us that you gotta know. I've been working there the longest, so I'm an assistant manager of sorts. I've gone over these rules hundreds of times. The only thing that makes me madder than having to explain them to another new girl is to have to explain them to the same person _twice_. So listen up so I don't have to repeat myself. Got that?" Kyoko barked. Part of her knew she was being overly harsh to her new protégé; it wasn't like it was her fault she was having such a shit day. At the same, a larger part of her simply didn't give a damn.

"Got it!" _Ugh, this girl is too chirpy_.

"First rule: customers can't touch you. You can touch them, within boundaries of course. But if you let a customer touch you, they'll start touching other girls and most of us are here to be strippers, not prostitutes. And when I say you can touch them, I mean lap dances, at the most! Don't go around thinking it's ok to give blow jobs to get extra tips! We're a strip club, not a brothel. If you make any customers confused about that, I'll make you regret it." This was a disgusting problem that they had a _lot_.

"Ok!" The girl said with a clear sigh of relief. _Good sign, at least. _

"Going off of that: don't think just because some guy gives you lots of tips or says sweet things to you means he's in love with you either. Guys don't go to our club to fall in love; they go there because they're horny. Don't fuck that up, for the sake of keeping our client base and the sanity of the dressing room intact." There had been an issue a few years ago where one of the girls, a poor, stupid idealistic fool thought a wealthy news anchor had fallen in love with her. The dumbass deliberately got pregnant to convince him to leave his wife. He ended up bribing her to stay quiet and get an abortion. She went crazy and left town while he and his friends never came back to the club. Which sucked, because they all gave good tips and drank lots of sake.

"Not a problem." The blonde nodded in a way that looked like she was trying to show a deep and sage understanding. She had no idea what she was getting into…

"Second official rule: what happens in the club, stays in the club. We have some very high profile customers who want to get away from their wives a bit. We have some upscale businessmen who make deals here that could blow the stock market away. We also have some less reputable businessmen who make deals here that could blow the cops away. In any case, they come to Tomi's because they know we won't tell. And so help me, if you try to tell, I _will _make you regret it." Again, they had had issues with this before. A sneaky bitch a few years ago was actually a paparazzo. Got some dirt on their more political customers before an upcoming election. Never made it to the papers though. Kyoko….took care of it, let's say. Nothing illegal, of course; just a bit of enchantment magic to convince her it was a horrible idea to tell and that she should leave Kazamino. There were no threats involved…none at all…of course, because that would be illegal, and wrong.

"Of course." The girl said. There was something in her voice, in her expression, in _something _that made Kyoko think this rule had struck a chord somewhere, but she wasn't sure. She also didn't care because she wouldn't let this amateur ruin what had given her and Yuma a stable income for the past five and a half years.

Kyoko hesitated, scrutinizing the girl walking beside her. The girl beside her kept a stoic face. Kyoko let out a sigh.

"Alright, third and last official rule then."

* * *

><p>The walk to the school had been mostly silent. This didn't bother Sayaka too much. She remembered in training that it was best to build up a trust before being able to dig into anything. She was more likely to be seen as trustworthy if she didn't say much than if she talked a lot; the more she talked, the more likely it would be that she would let something slip.<p>

Hearing the fiery girl beside her fire off rules at her was intimidating. Especially because she was full-out threatening at times. _I wonder if she knows it's illegal to threaten a police officer…does it count if she doesn't know it's a cop? I feel like the general principle still stands…_

The first rule had come as a relief to her. She had been terrified that grimy old drug dealers would be touching her _all _over. She hated the thought of someone as disgusting as a criminal touching her no-no parts, as her parents used to call them.

The second rule terrified her. It made sense to have it as a rule. Hell, the shady dealings of Tomi's were why she was sent in in the first place. But Sayaka had always been a surprisingly good judge of character, and she knew her abrasive mentor was honest and capable of carrying out her threat in one way or another. It took everything in her power to keep a neutral face and not shiver under her judgmental gaze. Something about it made her pulse pick up and breath become shaky; must be the nerves.

"Alright, third and last official rule then." Sayaka nodded to show she was listening. She had paid attention in the active listening section of class at the Police Academy!

"Don't be late. Ever. And by this, I don't mean you show up to the club when your shift starts. It means you're in full costume and makeup no less than ten minutes before your shift starts. If you're late, you get fined." That confused Sayaka, and clearly it showed from the way Kyoko rolled her eyes.

"Right, you're new in the industry. Basically, you're not quite an employee per say. You're more of a contractor. You don't actually get a salary. You get money from tips. And if you're late, you get charged for it because Tomi's will look bad by not having a full staff. For the first ten minutes of waiting, you'll be charged $30. From ten to twenty minutes, you have to add another $40. From twenty to thirty minutes, add $50. After that, you just owe Tomi $300. If you show up when it's not your shift, you get sent home and fined $100."

"That seems harsh." Sayaka noted. Kyoko shrugged.

"It makes sure people show up when they're supposed to. Having too many girls can dilute tips which makes us lose some of our top talent. Having too few girls makes us unappealing to customers who don't exactly come for the chicken wings, even though they are freaking delicious." Strangely enough, Sayaka had heard that somewhere too. She would have to try them while she was there.

There was something kind of exciting about having to be super punctual. Sayaka had never been the best with that. Maybe this undercover work could help her work on some more of her self-betterment goals that she kept ditching! She could also lose that five pounds she'd been meaning to, or actually start washing dishes right after she'd used them…

While Sayaka got lost in her reverie of all of her failed little goals from over the years, Kyoko had kept talking.

"-so for the love of _God _if you want to show off pole tricks, make sure you put chalk on your hands first in case the next person is a slipper instead of a sticker!" _Huh? _

"Got it!"

"Another unofficial rule, going off of the last one. You're not in competition with the other workers. Sure, you all want to get the regulars who tip the best. And believe me, regulars tip way better than first timers or drop-ins. But if a client is already a regular for another girl who's on that shift, _don't go for that client_. First come, first serve. That's the ultimate way to piss someone, especially me off. I fucking _hate _hearing about this kind of bullshit, and I hear it all the time as it is so if I hear it about you, I'm going to be pissed!" _if I don't steal anyone's clients though, how can I get any information?_

Sayaka wisely stopped herself before that question popped out.

"Also, remember how I told you before clients couldn't touch you, but you could touch them? Well, you should touch them for one. Clients don't only come to drool all over us, but they want to feel desired. Sell the illusion that you actually want them. But doing that, assuming you're doing it right, also makes them think you want them to touch you, which as we agreed is bad. If anyone ever tries to touch you, discretely wave a bouncer over to break it up. It's the bouncer's fault, not yours then. But, if you see a girl who's stuck and can't get a bouncer's attention, intervene somehow. Be nice, hell be sexy about it somehow if you can. You help them, they help you. Good karma, you know?"

That certainly made sense to Sayaka, but she just knew that the cop in her would want to beat up the guys who were basically sexually harassing the poor women. She would have to control that urge, which would be damn hard if they were the scumbags she was supposed to get. If there was one thing she had learned, bad people don't always get what they deserve. And neither do the good.

Seeing Kazamino Middle School was a bit of blast from the past. The building itself didn't look like it fit together properly. There were three sections to the school; the old, the new, and the Hizuki wing, which was actually newer than the new wing. The old wing was a large, rectangular pale yellow stucco building with red doors and window frames that clashed badly. The new wing had a smooth, pale green exterior with white doors and circular windows that would have looked quite attractive on its own. The Hizuki wing, built after the Mitakihara disaster to accommodate the influx of new students was all glass, just like Mitakihara Middle School. They had done that to try to remind the new students of home.

The administrators had been very confused when the majority of the Mitakihara students requested to have classes in the other wings.

"Just wait out here. I'll be back in ten minutes or something. I think." Kyoko said, seeming unsure. Sayaka suspected that the redhead wasn't very sure herself what she was doing at the gaudy school.

"Alright, I'll wait here." The redhead nodded and confidently walked into the school. She stopped, turned to face the map for visitors, and started to look increasingly frustrated over a matter of seconds. _Patience isn't this one's strong point, is it? _

Sayaka sighed and went inside to join her lost mentor.

* * *

><p>This was uncomfortable. Kyoko knew she had to go to an art lab to meet her teacher, but wasn't sure if it was art lab A, B, or C. The teacher told her the Hizuki lab, but that word didn't have the fucking letter A, B, or C in it!<p>

"Where are you trying to go?" The new kid asked.

"Didn't I tell you to wait outside?" _Is the bitch seriously disobeying me after we've been working together for thirty minutes? _

"You look like you don't know where you're going." _No shit, Sherlock. _"I used to go here so I figured maybe I could help." Kyoko's pride wanted to tell the blonde Lady Gaga lookalike to go to hell. Kyoko's sense was telling her that she had no idea where she was going and was already late.

"Hizuki art lab. Now." Rin nodded and started walking, taking a series of turns going up and down stairs (_Why is this school so fucked up? I mean really, who needs to go up two flights of stairs and then go down again? These teachers are supposed to want to spend time with the kids, so why do they need their own private area?_) before approaching a glass door that said "Art Lab C: Hizuki Lab".

"Thanks. Wait here." Kyoko said begrudgingly, rushing in and not wanting to be with the living doll any longer. The room was large with surprisingly pristine white tables scattered haphazardly along the borders of the studio. A group of about ten students were in a messy circle in the middle, working on paintings of different colours and themes. One stylish, wealthy looking girl with sleek dark brown hair was working on what looked like fashion designs (_typical_) while an overweight, messy looking boy next to her seemed to be drawing a self-portrait; a very dark and deformed one that really struck Kyoko. She noticed her little sister next to him, appearing to be starting a painting of the hellhound witch they had fought together last week.

She dropped a box of pocky on the young artist's lap, ruffling the 'hot mess' of green hair before leaning against her to look at the painting in progress.

"Whatcha working on?" Kyoko asked casually.

"Whatcha doing here?" The greenette replied skeptically.

"Sakura-san! Thank you very much for coming in on such short notice." The art teacher exclaimed as she emerged from her office. The school looked like it was put together strangely, and so did this woman. She was very petite, barely coming up to Kyoko's shoulders; and Kyoko wasn't all that tall. She had short, mousy brown hair in a mom-hairstyle bob that did nothing to make her pop more, and neither did the frameless glasses against her mousy brown eyes. This woman simply looked like a mouse.

But her _clothes_. She was wearing a purple and pink tie-dye maxi dress with what looked like a large dream catcher around her neck. She also had a surprisingly deep voice for a woman that Kyoko could tell would boom if she ever spoke loudly enough. She could see what Yuma meant when she called the teacher a tad eccentric.

"Yeah, not a problem."

"Am I in trouble?" Yuma whispered nervously.

"You better not be." Kyoko replied threateningly.

"I _told_ you on the phone, Sakura-san. It's nothing like that. Please come into my office." The deceptively deep voice boomed, startling all of the room's current user. A few students cursed under their breaths, clearly messing up their artworks. It was pretty rare to find someone who could command Kyoko's obedience, but this woman did it. She rushed after her into the small office in the back, quietly closing the door behind her. While the other room had been large, neat, and white, this one was small, crowded, and if the walls were white Kyoko couldn't tell; every inch of it was covered by some sort of painting.

"_What's going on? Tell me!" _Yuma yelled telepathically.

"_I just got in here, how fast do you think we can talk to each other? And shut up, I'm trying to listen." _

"Again, thank you for coming. I'm sorry for rushing you in here. I don't want the students to find out yet."

"Find out about what?" The mousy teacher smiled, like she had some sort of juicy secret to tell and had been holding back from telling everyone for months. But that could very well be what this meeting was for.

"_Yeah, find out about what?"_

"_Yuma get out of my head! How can you even do that?!"_

"_You didn't close off your link. Don't blame me that you're lazy." _Kyoko made sure the close the link with a mental slam.

A loud "Ow!" could be heard from the studio. _Oops, too hard. _

"Every year, Kazamino Middle School lets some programs take their top students on trips to develop their skills. For example; the Japanese literary club went to Kyoto last year; the English club went to London; and the environmental club went to the Costa Rican rainforest. The teacher said that was a nightmare!" She said with excitement.

"Ok..."

"This year the art program has been given some funding to go to New York City to attend a three-week workshop on modern art and design! It's truly a thrilling opportunity. It's been incredibly difficult to decide who should be nominated, but I think it's only fair that the art club students get to go. They have worked so much and clearly show the most dedication. And some of them, Yuma in particular, show the greatest amount of natural talent I've ever seen."

"Oh, uh, that sounds really neat."

"Indeed! I wanted to talk to you first because I had heard that you might not be able to afford this..."

"Depends. How much is it going to cost?"

"Workshop fees, travel, accommodations, and food will probably come out to 300,000 yen." _Fuck, that's like three months' rent! _"But we do have a scholarship program at the school that I am planning on nominating Yuma for. I can't guarantee she would get anything though since it's quite competitive. So if you did want to send Yuma, I would plan for the worst and budget that much. I wanted to speak to you first, because I didn't want to put you in a position where I tell everyone about this and get Yuma's hopes up. I hope that wasn't overstepping any boundaries."

"No, no, it's fine." _I think I might have a contract or two coming up and I'll make that money in no time but it would be nice to not have to pay that much. _"We actually have a lot of money in savings from our parents' life insurance policies. I just didn't want to use it all up before she got a chance to go to university, you know? But Mom and Dad would have really wanted her to go, so I'm sure they'd be proud of us for using the money like this…"

The teacher looked very, very uncomfortable.

"I'm so sorry for your loss. I was upset about losing my cat in the Mitakihara disaster; I can't imagine losing my parents. I promise you, I will do _everything _in my power to get Yuma one of the scholarships. I'm sure if I explain your…family situation that the board will be exceptionally generous. Your case is quite rare, after all." _We're getting closer… _She made tears start to well up in her eyes.

"Thank you so much for your help! I really, really appreciate it. You know, Yuma was always to more special one of the two of us; you know, smarter, nicer, more artistic, everything. I may have been a screw up before our parents died, but now that I'm all she has, I want her to be able to have all of the things she deserves, you know? It's just…it's hard sometimes." She started to cry. Fake tears, of course. "It's hard seeing all of these kids who have it so much better just because they were lucky enough to have great, rich families. Families that could provide for them; families that are better than me." The teacher looked like she was about to cry now too.

"No, Sakura-san Yuma is so lucky to have you! She has gotten to do everything any other child has gotten to do, really. Listen to me: I…I promise I will find a way to get her to go on this trip if money will be a problem. You don't have to worry. You've been doing your best and-"

"Really? I mean…can you do that? Only if money's a problem, I mean. I bet if I take on double shifts, I can get some extra tips at the bar at night and restaurant during the day…"

"Yes! I mean, do what you can, but please don't feel like you need to work yourself into the ground. I can make this work out, really. I can contribute towards this too if you need it."

Kyoko wiped some tears from her eyes, hiccupping a bit. "Really?"

"Yes, of course! Yuma is one of my most promising students. I would hate for her to miss this opportunity, or for you to feel like you have to sacrifice yourself for this. No matter what, we can make this work."

Kyoko nodded, a small gentle smile gracing her tear stained face.

"Th-thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me. And to Yuma, I'm sure."

"Of course, Sakura-san. This can be our little secret. And if you don't mind me, I have a big announcement to make." She said winking.

_Got you. _Kyoko thought with a smirk as the kind-hearted teacher left the office. _I hope this didn't smudge my makeup too badly._

* * *

><p>This was uncomfortable. Sayaka felt strange standing outside of a middle school art room as a nineteen year old cop who wasn't even doing one of those presentations to scare kids into not doing drugs. The fact that she felt she was wearing ridiculously dark makeup didn't help any either. <em>Should I go outside and wait there? Or will hanging around outside make me look more suspicious?<em>

She sighed and looked around nostalgically. Well, not really all that nostalgically; she hadn't really spent much time in this part of the school before. None of her friends had been particularly talented artistically. Kyousuke was obsessed with music, even after the accident had broken his back and took away the ability to move his fingers so he joined the music club as a support kind of person. Hitomi and Sayaka were both in the drama club, though neither were particularly good with attending practice; Hitomi got panic attacks being out too long and Sayaka just didn't care enough. And then the other one…he just didn't join anything.

_I wonder what clubs Madoka or Homura would have joined? _

She flinched at the thought. It was hard not to think of the friends she lost in middle school while she was in one. But, she needed to focus on the matter at hand. This was her first day as an undercover cop and she felt awkward as hell. The movies always made it look like undercovers were so cool all the time.

The movies also made it look like she would be in car chases and shooting bad guys. She had only ever had a runner once, and he was piss drunk. He didn't even run fifteen feet before he tripped into a fountain. That was also her first arrest.

All in all, things weren't nearly as excited as she had expected them to be.

"Ow!"

She looked inside the room at the source of the noise. A green-haired girl sitting in front of a beautiful, deranged painting of some sort of monster had made it. She was rubbing her forehead.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just a sudden migraine I guess." Sayaka could hear her voice muffled from the door. She intrigued her, and Sayaka wasn't sure why. She felt like she had met her before. She had noticed that Kyoko seemed to know that girl; she must be her little sister. But they didn't look a thing alike.

Kyoko was fairly tall and slender; not much in the way of curves. She had a very feminine face, but it still had angles; a sharp nose, fairly thin lips and defined cheekbones. And, of course, her bright red hair and crimson eyes that naturally fell into a sort of "come hither" look.

Her little sister seemed to be her opposite in a lot of ways. She was small, likely because she was still growing though. But while she was maybe twelve or thirteen, she already had larger breasts than Kyoko (_Oh god, it is so rape-y that I noticed that_). Her face, while showing similar cheek bones had much softer features overall. Her eyes were big like Kyoko's, but they were rounder, blue, and more childlike in a way. She was cute. _She looks like a green-haired Madoka_.

Maybe that was it? She reminded her of Madoka and that's why she thought they had met? She couldn't think of how or when they would have met otherwise.

"Everyone, I have some exciting news! As many of you know, every year a few programs are selected to take its top students on travel opportunities. This year, the art program was selected to go to New York, and I have nominated all of you to go." A collective gasp was heard in the room.

It was almost heartbreaking to watch Kyoko's little sister. She just had a polite little smile on her face that didn't reach her eyes. She clearly didn't assume she was going anywhere.

Sayaka watched the scene before her unfold with interest. She saw Kyoko nonchalantly come up behind her sister and wrap her arm around the girl' shoulders, looking at her painting in progress. She said something that Sayaka couldn't hear, but she sure heard the younger greenette's excited scream as she turned around, jumping into her older sister's arms.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you Onee-chan! I love you, thank you!" _Aww_.

She quickly scrambled back, face flushed with evident embarrassment. She said something, again that Sayaka couldn't hear. She heard her crimson-haired mentor's bark of a laugh though.

"Yeah, nice try loser. Anyways, I've got to go back to get ready for work. I'll see you at home."

Sayaka scrambled back to try to make it look like she wasn't watching everything happening inside the room. Kyoko exiting the room to find that Sayaka had tripped and fallen flat on her ass did not help Sayaka achieve this goal.

"I was just sick of standing."

"Sure you were." She said helping her up. _At least she's not as mean as she comes across. She's a big softie inside. _

Then, something dawned on her.

"Hey, um, can I ask you a question?" She asked tentatively as they exited the front doors of the school. She noticed her red-haired counterpart's shoulders stiffen.

"That's a dangerous thing to do when you work at the club, so I'd highly recommend that you not." Curt, but not angry.

"Ok, but…can I ask it?" The red-head sighed.

"Go ahead."

"That girl in there, the one with the green hair, that's your little sister, right?"

"Yeah, what about her?"

"Where are your parents?" The red-head stiffened even more. Sayaka was curious as to just how much of the truth the red-head had been telling before in the park. She was surprised that there was an actual little sister, and she honestly felt bad about it.

"They died. Mitakihara disaster six years ago." Sayaka couldn't tell if she was lying. She usually had a good sense for these things. She had no reason to doubt it, and definitely no good reason to ask any more about it. She was still curious, but she had to be careful to not overstep her boundaries this early in the game…or at all.

"I'm…really sorry to hear that. I lost people there too. Is that why you're working at the club now?"

"Remember when I told you not to ask questions, like two minutes ago?"

"Ah, right. I'm sorry, I was just….yeah, I'm sorry." _Too much, idiot! Just shut up! _Her mentor sighed again, this time more aggravated than the last.

"But yeah, it is. And I can tell you're the type who doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut, so I'll tell you now; keep your mouth shut. Most people at the club, coworkers and clients, don't know about her and I like it that way. If it were up to me, you wouldn't know about her either, but that school is a fucking maze. So seriously, don't talk about her, ok?"

"Uh, yeah, sure! Don't worry, your secret's safe with me!" _That's kind of odd, but ok…_

"And one other informal rule I guess I should have told you about before, while we're on the topic…don't ask why people started to work at the club. It's never a happy story. I doubt you grew up dreaming about being a stripper."

"I haven't really dreamt of being anything for the last few years." It was the honest to God truth.

"Ok." It didn't sound like she cared. Sayaka was miffed, but hell she felt like talking.

"Heroine's one hell of a drug." Kyoko's eyes widened.

"Ah…yeah I've heard." She looked like was thinking about saying something. "Why would you tell me that?" Sayaka got embarrassed. She really hadn't thought that through.

"I don't know…I guess I kind of want you to like me if we're going to be working together. And hey, now I know a secret about you and you know one about me, right? So we're even?"

The red-heard looked at her incredulously. _I'm an idiot. _

To her surprise, the red-haired grinned and offered her a stick of pocky. _Where did she get that? _

"I guess you're right. Just a heads up though; don't tell anyone else at the club about that, ok? No clients or coworkers, even if you think you're friends. A lot of people have a lot of connections there and they won't hesitate to screw you over. You look pretty clean to me, so I'm guessing you don't want to go back to that; am I right?"

_Shit, I didn't even think about that. Is this going to be way harder than I thought?_ She thought as she chewed on the chocolate and biscuit snack.

"Yeah. Thanks for the heads up." She smiled genuinely.

They kept walking towards downtown. Sayaka glanced at the time on the new phone work gave her for this assignment; 4:45. Their shift didn't start until 7:00. And considering that it was a Wednesday night, she was sure that there wouldn't be too much to prepare for.

_Maybe we'll be fine. _

* * *

><p>The new girl seemed alright to her. She didn't piss her off as much as the others did which was a welcome change of pace for Kyoko.<p>

They spoke amicably on the way back to the club. Rin joked about her overly dramatic friends and how that could prepare her for the drama of the club. Kyoko in turned told her stories to make it clear that she had no idea what was coming her way.

They stopped by a ramen store for dinner on the way, which Rin was adamant about paying for. _Can't complain. _

They were mostly silent as they ate, with Rin asking an occasional question like "How do you keep your hair so healthy when it's so long?" and "Do you ever have problems with your makeup getting smudged from sweating while dancing?"

"If you're doing things right, you won't be on the pole that much or getting all that much of a workout."

"Oh…so this won't be a good job for helping me get in shape?"

"Nope, If you're anything like everyone else at the club, you're going to get ramen noodles here before almost every shift and barely be on the pole at all."

"Well shit." The new girl said without a hint of sadness in her tone. Kyoko smirked.

"So…your sister's going to New York, huh? That's pretty cool! Have you ever travelled yourself?" Kyoko's improved mood started to waver. She was hoping they wouldn't talk about Yuma anymore.

"No, never had the money or the time."

"Oh…well I guess you must have been saving up, right? Do you think you'll go to New York with her?" _Things were going well, ok? Now shut up. _

"No, and I'm going to take a few extra shifts to get the money. Can you drop the subject? I don't like thinking about family this close to show time. It gets me distracted."

"Ah, right! Sorry. That makes sense. I'll just…yeah." _And now it's awkward. _Kyoko sighed. She realized she had probably been using a bit too much of a 'scare' tactic on the new girl.

"You don't need to be so freaked out by me, ok? I'm scary if you get me mad, but you haven't done anything yet. So relax. I mostly described the worst things about the club to get you ready. I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides, you get tons of money here once you really get going and most of your coworkers are nice, non-dramatic people; it's great, ok?"

"Yeah, I get it. Thanks. I really appreciate your help." _She has a sweet smile_ Kyoko thought as she lazily, and only partially sincerely smiled back.

* * *

><p>This girl seemed alright to her. Sayaka was slowly feeling more and more settled around her, despite the rocky start that she was grateful the other one had no idea that they had.<p>

"The cop wrote me a ticket for 1,000 yen. 1,000 yen! Who the hell does that? It's more of a waste of time to pay than a waste of money!" _Oops. That was supposed to be 10,000. My supervisor's going to chew me out over that one._

"That's ridiculous. That's exactly why I hate cops. They think they do so much good for society and act like heroes when all they do is write pointless tickets. I can't even count how many parking tickets I've gotten. Don't they have anything better to do?" It pained Sayaka to say that, but she hoped she sounded convincing. Parking violations were a legitimate crime to punish, goddammit!

"I know, right? Assholes, all of them."

"Totally."

They went back to eating, and Sayaka couldn't help but watch Kyoko in fascination. _I have never seen anyone eat like that. _Sayaka's ramen order had been half the size, but she was already full and still had about a quarter of it left. Kyoko on the other hand was ripping through hers, eating like she hadn't eaten in a week.

"You going to finish that?" _My God woman, do you have a bottomless pit for a stomach?_

"Uh, no. Are you sure you have room? Aren't you worried about being too full to perform? It's ok, I can just throw it-" Sayaka was cut off by Kyoko grabbing the ramen bowl with her chopsticks at a speed Sayaka had never witnessed before.

"Don't. Waste. Food." She snarled. Sayaka relented, releasing the bowl and putting her hands above her head.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Just don't waste food, ok?"

"Got it." _Not really, but whatever floats your boat. _Kyoko quickly finished up both meals like a ravenous dog.

"It's past 6:00. We need to get going."

Sayaka nodded and got everything together. They walked to the club, as silent as they had been before.

* * *

><p>Kyoko was frustrated. First, Rei and Lei were on this shift and they were fighting a-fucking-gain because Lei was trying to copy all of Rei's outfits.<p>

"You bitch! Why can't you think of anything on your own?! Leave me alone!"

"Oh shut up you little cunt; you wouldn't even make half the tips you do without me!"

Rin's eyes were wide with something akin to fear as she watched the dramatic similar-looking girls screeching at each other across the dressing room. Everyone else ignored it easily enough.

"Koko, who's your friend?" A tall, beautiful looking amazon type woman asked, with what was clearly a man's voice.

"Lady, this is Rin, a new girl here. Rin, this is Lady. She and I do a lot of work together here; our clients are friends."

"Hi, nice to meet you!" Rin said pleasantly, extending her arm for a handshake. She seemed unfazed by Lady, so she was off to a better start than most of the girls who start here.

"Nice to meet you too, Rin. I'm guessing you'll be shadowing us tonight then, eh? What's your stage name, just so I know."

"Stage name? Ah, I hadn't thought of that yet."

"Well, you have about thirty minutes to decide the name that we'll call you for the rest of your life, so make it a good one!" Rin just blinked her big green eyes at a loss for words.

"Uh…"

"I'm sure we'll figure something out." Kyoko said, casually throwing an arm around the newbie. "Come on, we need to get your outfit."

"Oh! I know the perfect one for you! I would have worn it myself but I think I'm a bit big for it." Lady said, pointing to her massive surgically enhanced bosom.

Lady was a unique one. Yes, it was obvious when she spoke that she was still pre-op, but she was still a beautiful woman. Kyoko stopped thinking of people as weird a long time ago when she got used to going out in a frilly red dress to fight monsters every night; she had no right to call anyone else weird.

And Lady knew the most about how to do hair and makeup out of everyone who had ever worked here. In fact, she always came in extra early just so she could help everyone else get ready. Kyoko had already done her dark, sultry makeup earlier for when Rin came by to show her what would be appropriate makeup. Lady had created an unofficial rule of "no tramp makeup"; anyone who tried wearing bright blue eye shadow with bright red lipstick wasn't allowed on stage. It was actually pretty funny to Kyoko just how many girls had gotten mad, and busted about that.

"Here you go!" She came back with a very see-through green dress that had blue starfish pasties that would glue onto her breasts and a blue thong. Rin looked like she was about to pass out.

"You could be wearing a lot less, you know." Kyoko said knowingly. Just as she said that, one the curly-haired blonde girls who went by "Marilyn" walked by topless with what Kyoko assumed were crotchless panties.

"Where's the rest of her outfit?" Rin whispered.

"That is her outfit. See? I told you you could be wearing a lot less."

"Sweetie, if you're shy about your body, you're in the wrong line of work."

"I'm not shy about my body! What are you talking about?" A pink-haired girl wearing pigtails yelled from behind Lady.

"Not you, Sweetie, I'm talking to the new girl." Sweetie came around to meet Rin. Sweetie was a short, stocky thing; very cute. She had been dubbed Pippi Longstocking before due to her formerly red hair and freckles; turns out she had been ridiculed about that her entire life and didn't want to have anything to do with the name. So she dyed her hair and went by 'Sweetie' after Sweetie IV quit.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Sweetie. What's your name?"

Rin looked distinctly uncomfortable, probably because the girl in front of her was completely nude.

"S-So nice to meet you! I'm Rin." She smiled back. Kyoko laughed. _I hate training new girls, but their first reactions are always priceless._

"No, what's your stage name? We don't care about real names here. You told her that, didn't you Koko?" Kyoko didn't get a particularly creative name.

"I did, but she hasn't thought of one yet. Can't blame that one on me."

"Oh, we get to name you! I love coming up with names!" A few girls nearby heard and came over to start chattering with Rin about what her name could be. Rin looked nervous, but the scantily clad girls knew enough to ignore it.

"Want me to do your hair while she's busy?" Lady offered, stroking the red locks. Kyoko was lucky that Lady loved working with her hair.

"Thanks Lady."

* * *

><p>Sayaka was frustrated. Kyoko freaking ditched her and now these girls, some of whom were naked that she had never met were tearing her clothes off. <em>Literally<em> tearing them off! _I think one of the buttons came off on my jacket!_

"Oooh, green looks gorgeous on you! It matches your eyes. Maybe we can call her Lucky?"

"Isn't there a Lucky that usually works on Mondays?"

"Oh, right."

"The stars are cute! How about Star?" Another purple-haired girl chimed in.

"Star works Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. She'd be mad about that." Sweetie responded. "Why are all the good names taken?" She pouted. _Because they all sound like good stripper names._

"How do you want to do your hair? Oh, I know! Hang on." A girl who looked foreign, maybe Thai ran off. _Oh dear Lord what did I sign up for? _

After fifteen minutes of girls of various backgrounds and 'stage personas' milling about, she emerged from the mass with her hair gently falling in glossy waves around the outfit Lady had picked out. She had been terrified that they would singe the wig. But she had to admit, she felt pretty.

"Aaawww, you're so pretty!" The purple-haired girl, Violet chimed in. _Not a very creative name either._

"Thanks for your help everyone! I really appreciate it."

An alarm rang, signalling that their shift was starting in two minutes.

"I don't have a name!" Sayaka was freaking out. Everyone made it very clear that she needed to have one, and she had to fit in. She couldn't stand out from the crowd. She had to blend in and be a fly on the wall, just like Ryo taught her. Screaming "I don't have a name!" was probably the wrong way to start that.

"Don't worry, you can figure one out while you're out there. It's not like you'll be performing tonight."

The chaos that ensued as girls started filing out to work left Sayaka alone behind and confused in the dressing room until the first group started filing in.

"Aren't you supposed to be out there?" An older looking stripper, maybe in her mid-forties asked.

"This is my first shift and I have no idea what to do."

"The first thing you should do is go out there."

"Right." And with that, Sayaka went out, not realizing that she was heading straight for the centre stage.

* * *

><p>Kyoko smiled in a way that looked sincere, but inside she was sneering. She had perfected the art of looking and sounding one way when really thinking another. It was crucial in this line of work.<p>

She was sitting on her top client's lap; Kurosawa Yuta.

"I missed you Yuta-sama! You were gone for so long." She pouted as she played with what was left of his thinning hair. It was a good thing Kyoko was quite slender, because Yuta was not. He wasn't obese, but he was definitely overweight which occasionally made her more acrobatic lap dances a bit difficult. She had to spread her legs a bit more than she would like to be able to do any of the moves facing away from him, which she felt was a bad combination with the short clothes she usually wore. She knew he thought it was quite a good combination.

"Aw, I missed you too Koko. Could I have a massage? My neck is very _stiff_." He said condescendingly with an emphasis on the word 'stiff' that made Kyoko shudder inside. None the less, she started to massage him as he requested.

Kurosawa was the type of man who wanted to break her. But she had to admit she respected him.

Kurosawa Yuta was not an ordinary customer. He was not an ordinary man, either. He was practically the drug overlord of Kazamino and the surrounding area, but the cops had never managed to get enough proof on him. That and he had one of the best, and most crooked lawyers in Japan on speed dial.

He was also one of the few who knew about Kyoko's contract work. Most people knew there was someone connected to the club who could do great work for anyone who would pay the price; Kurosawa was one of the only ones who knew it was her. She wished no one knew, but these crime gangs were family affairs and Tomi and Kurosawa were cousins. Therefore, any business partner of Tomi's was a business partner of Kurosawa. And it left Kyoko stuck in this situation.

"Oh, that's good. You always give the best massages Koko." He said pleasantly, handing her a note for 5,000 yen. He was sometimes an ass who overplayed his position of power here, but hey, he tipped well because he knew he needed her. He also never stuck money in her clothes, which was a small gesture she had to admit she appreciated. She still stashed it there though.

"And who's this handsome young man?" She asked, looking at a man who appeared to be in his late twenties. He appeared to be a younger, fuller-haired thin version of the man whose lap she was sitting on now, and distinctly uncomfortable being here. Kyoko couldn't blame him. She'd be pretty uncomfortable if she were sitting next to her father while he was getting a lap dance too.

"Ah, of course. Koko, this is my son, Fusao. He's going to be helping with the family business from now on."

"Nice to meet you Fusao-sama." She _hated _calling them by the suffix –sama, but it gave Kurosawa a power rush, which in turn gave her more tips. "Are you going to be coming here a lot too then?" She asked as she began to crawl onto his lap. She secretly loved how much she could make this Kurosawa squirm.

"Abandoning me so soon for a younger man, Koko? I'm hurt." The older man mock pouted.

"I'm sorry Yuta-sama. He just has all your charm but in a younger, and more robust body. I don't think I can resist him." She said, looking over her shoulder at him while doing her best 'sex kitten' face. It was a bit difficult to do as Lady had styled her hair so it was held back by a headband and sprayed to be very large. Also, the tight leather outfit did not make moving all that easy.

She and the older gentleman looked at each other for a moment. Then they both burst out laughing. Kyoko thought he was an ass who showed borderline sadistic fetishistic behaviour towards her, but in a weird way they were kind of friends.

"Who is _that_?" Fusao asked while he gazed in awe at the centre stage.

"Oh shit, Koko. You should have kept a closer eye on your rookie…" Lady said from where she was sitting on an adjoining blood red plush couch, straddling a young man who was comically small compared to her.

"You know her, Koko?" Yuta asked with mild interest. He clearly did not hold nearly the same amount of interest as his son did.

Rin, meanwhile on stage, looked like she was trying to 'play it cool'. Kyoko could see right through that, but she figured everyone else would be fooled well enough. But oh boy, there was going to be hell to pay later, for both of them. Girls frequently had to fight to get centre stage, and planned it months in advance. And this girl just walked up there on her first night.

Something that sounded like a techno remix of some sort of classical song started playing. She looked to the DJ booth and saw Tomi, Sango, and the DJ frantically gesturing and speaking in whispers to each other.

"Ladies and gentlemen, presenting to you our newest talent!" The DJ said in his characteristic "American radio show host announcer voice" that was overly proud of. He paused and started speaking in hushed tones again to his companions. He then pulled a face that Kyoko imagined was saying something along the lines of 'you have got to be shitting me'. "The girl whose name is to be determined, as far as we know!"

Kyoko had never felt humiliated by one of her rookies before, but there was a first time for everything. Usually she was just aggravated by them. Now she was both. And she was certain that Tomi was going to chew her out big over this. It wasn't her fault the newbie got lost in the dressing room or something like that! A small voice inside her head disagreed with her, but she chose to ignore it.

"Wow…" Fusao said with astonishment. Kyoko had to admit, of any new girl to be caught in this situation, it was a good thing it was Rin. She had incredible skills on the pole and knew how to use her flexibility to her advantage. At the very moment, she was holding herself up on the pole by grasping her foot behind her head and doing the splits so she looked like a ballerina. Kyoko was impressed; she wasn't flexible enough to do that. But she was still a lot better than her. Definitely.

"She has good moves, Koko. Do you think they're better than yours?" Ah, Suki Miyamoto. Another one of Kurosawa and Tomi's top business partners. She and her twin brother, Tsubasa, who looked nothing alike were sitting across from the Kurosawa couch. Suki had short, black spiked hair with a very angular face that made her look like a fox; she was tall, taller than Kyoko and has a very solid bone structure. She was the kind of woman who looked masculine from far away, but oddly beautiful if you saw her up close.

Her brother on the other hand did not have any such luck. He was very tall and very slender; quite gawky looking in Kyoko's opinion. Though he was in his early thirties, his face still retained a babyish quality to it and some acne. His light ginger hair and large auburn eyes, accentuated by his large thick Clarke-Kent style glasses made him look even younger. He could easily pass for a geeky fourteen year old, which he used to his advantage; no one ever suspected him of anything.

Kyoko always wished she could see a photo of what their parents looked like, just to see how they could have possibly made that combination.

"She has nothing on me." She said easily, though Rin was rotating expertly against the pole, legs high in the air in an inverted position and making something like a V with her body. Kyoko could see that it was difficult for Rin to hold that position while that was simple for her to do…mostly due to her magical abilities. _The advantages of selling your soul to the devil, I guess. _

At the end of the song, the centre stage was a miniature riot. A bunch of men, mostly new guys from what Kyoko assumed was a stag party were clamouring to give Rin small tips. She was a natural, sweet flirty smile and letting them stick money in her very tight and _very _revealing dress. After the commotion, she made eye contact with Kyoko and walked over.

* * *

><p>Sayaka smiled in a way at Kyoko that looked sincere, but inside she was sneering. <em>You fucking bitch you left me in there! And it was so easy to get to the stage from there! What the hell?!<em>

"So, how was that sensei?" She said in a breathy, seductive voice. She had no idea who these people were, but she figured that being rude in front of clients would be a good way to get fired.

"It was amazing." A younger guy said. He was sitting next to a man with a brief case who looked like…his father? _Who goes with their Dad to a strip club?_

"How long have you been dancing for?" A woman sitting across from the young guy said. From afar, Sayaka had thought she was a man but up close, she could see that she was actually quite striking. _Maybe she looks so weird she looks good? _

"About six months now." She smiled pleasantly. _Am I supposed to flirt with her too? I guess she must be a lesbian or something. _

"That's it? We need to make our girls train more, Tsuba. If they can get that good that quick, we could make a lot more money offering supplemental services than we do." She said to a man next to her. He was downright odd looking. Sayaka assumed he was her husband. _She must be a pretty cool wife to bring her husband to a strip club. I guess this place is more of a family place than I'd guessed. They sound like they have their own club though, so maybe they're here for research? _

"Definitely. Did you have a coach?" He asked.

"No. I taught myself with lessons online." She lied. She had no idea how connected Mei was to the police force and figured it was better safe than sorry.

"Which videos?" Fox woman pressed.

"Art of Pole. You can download them." They were pretty good videos, but she had learned most of her more flexible moves from Mei. "I got a bit creative with some of the more flexible moves on my own, but she has a solid base. Do you run a club too?" She noticed Kyoko glaring at her out of the corner of her eye. _Am I not supposed to ask clients things to? I thought showing an interest in their lives was a good thing! _

All of the clients laughed. "Something like that." Fox face said.

"No touching the girls!" A large, muscular bouncer with a menacing appearance said to the tiny man Lady was sitting on. Surely enough, he was fondling her ass.

"But Lady's not a girl." He said with a smile and an American accent. Lady looked hurt. "She's aaaalllll woman." He then buried his head between her gargantuan breasts and rapidly shook his head, making a motorboat noise with his mouth. Lady laughed; it struck Sayaka as being very genuine. Kyoko watched them with disapproval.

"Save that for later. I don't want you to be the reason we get kicked out and can't get good wings here anymore." Fox lady snarked. _Oh, they're here for wings. Damn, are they that good? _

"So, uh, you're new here?" The young man asked, scooting over for Sayaka to take a seat. She smiled graciously and sat down.

"Yeah. This is my first shift. Do you come here a lot?"

"I started this week. I'm going to be coming by a lot more though. When do you work?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I really hope I'll see more of you." Truthfully she didn't care. He wasn't one of the ones she was trying to get. But, she figured any normal stripper would see him as a good potential regular, so she had to look like she was trying to get him.

She then felt herself getting smacked upside the head. Hard.

"Ow! What was that for?" She turned around the culprit; none other than Kyoko.

"Because you should be giving our handsome new friend here a proper welcome; don't you think?" She asked as she made a motion that resembled riding…something on the older man more than she would have liked it too. _She said it's not a brothel. It's just a strip club. And this is just a lap dance, so it's ok. Clients aren't allowed to touch the girls. _

She kept smiling and pulled herself onto his lap. He seemed like a nice enough guy. She slowly grinded against him, as Mei had taught her. She also stole a few tricks she had seen Kyoko and Lady doing on their partners. She tried to ignore the lustful look he was directing at her breasts as she moved up and down in the way Kyoko had done earlier.

She tried to ignore the way his fingers were starting to trace up her thighs.

She really had to try to ignore the way his fingers started to sneak up her skirt.

"Ah ah ahh." Kyoko playfully scolded. "No touching my kohai." She said as she pushed his hands down and pulled Sayaka's back to her chest. _Thank you! _

"I don't see why I can't. James has been fondling his over there since we got here."

"Lady wants him to."

"Who says she doesn't want me to?" He retorted, nodding his head towards Sayaka. She had never felt more like an object in her life.

"I'm not saying she doesn't. I'm saying I don't like to share." Kyoko smirked like a devil and bit at Sayaka's ear, discretely whispering "If you feel uncomfortable, you should leave right now, ok?"

"Do you two touch each other?" The loud tiny American asked with a grin.

"Maybe we do, maybe we don't." She loosened her grip on Sayaka, clearly giving this as a 'now is your chance to get out, so do it' gesture.

"Well go on then, touch your kohai, _Koko_." The woman said, with a particularly mocking tone on Kyoko's stage name. Sayaka wondered why she would do that. She noticed Kyoko's slight glare. _I think there's something going on here that I don't know about. _

"I'd pay to see that." The older man by Kyoko said.

"How much?" Lady butted in.

"200,000 yen for you girls to split?" He smirked. On one hand, Sayaka was grossed out by the thought of people watching this. On the other, holy hell that was a lot of money. She was starting to feel like these people might be good ones to keep an eye on.

"What do you say, kohai?" She said loud enough for everyone to hear. She leaned in close to her ear and whispered "Seriously, if you're uncomfortable, just leave now. It's alright."

"Do you want to do it? It's a lot of money…" Sayaka whispered back. She could feel a slight shrug against her back. "The money would be nice. I could probably make that much in tips on my own anyways though. It's more if you want to do it. I don't care."

Sayaka was silent and considered it. It was a _lot_ of money, and she bet it could get her a private room with these people, maybe find out more about them. She made up her mind, but had to look convincingly like a typical stripper about it.

"Do you think I would be able to make that much in tips on my own tonight?"

"Not a chance."

"Let's do it then."

"Alright, we'll do it." Kyoko said to the others. "But not here. We want a private room." _I love you Kyoko!_

"That can be arranged. Tomi!" The father signalled to the owner at the DJ booth.

Lady giggled as the tiny American whispered something in her ear.

"Would you two cut that out? I mean really, I don't want to see that." Fox lady snapped.

"Hey now Miyamoto, I don't get much time with my special lady. I need to cherish every moment." He responded. He proceeded to go back to whispering to her and groping her, which Sayaka could have sworn Kyoko said was not allowed. Kyoko stopped the younger guy from doing it to her.

"James, you're even making the stripper uncomfortable. And we're about to watch her get it on with Koko. Give it a rest or get a private room." She said while gesturing at Sayaka.

"I'm not uncomfortable! No, uh, it's fine! Really!" She laughed nervously. She cleared her throat to compose herself. "If one of our girls wants to show more affection, and receive affection from one of our patrons, that's perfectly fine with me." She said pleasantly. _Be polite. Be courteous. Be polite. Be courteous. _She repeated her mantra in her head.

"I'm sorry, I guess it is pretty rude to ignore our new friend, especially for the show we're about to see." He had a charming smile, but Sayaka could feel like there was something darker hidden in there. She was not concerned of any ill will being directed at her right now, per say, but she felt like he was….dangerous. She was really starting to regret agreeing to this. What was worse was she couldn't figure out which thing she agreed to was the thing she was regretting; maybe all of them. In any case, she was starting to feel like she was getting in over her head.

Actually, she felt like a most of the people around this table were pretty dangerous and she had no idea why. Well, maybe not baby face.

"So do you actually not have a name?"

Sayaka laughed, a bit of discomfort evident in her voice. "I have a real name, but I don't have a stage name yet."

"So what's your real name?" The American asked.

"I'm…not sure if I'm supposed to say that." She replied honestly.

"Oh, come on. What's the worst that could happen? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." He coaxed. Sayaka looked to Kyoko for guidance. Her face was unreadable.

"I'm Yamasaki Rin." She said quietly with a smile and slight bow. The American laughed.

"So polite! Nice you meet you Rinny." _Rinny?_ "I'm Watanabe James. These here are some of my colleagues Miyamoto Suki and Miyamoto Tsubasa. On my other side are Kurosawa Yuta and Kurosawa Fusao."

"What the fuck are you doing?" Suki snapped. James held up his hand to silence her. Sayaka noticed that everyone looked very tense right now. _Why? _

"Tell me, Rinny. Did you know our names already?" He asked with a smile. Sayaka was incredibly confused.

"No, I'm sorry. Should I have asked Kyoko first?" She looked at Kyoko and whispered "Was I supposed to ask you first?" Kyoko quickly shook her head. The American laughed again, loud and boisterously.

"Fair enough, fair enough. She's telling the truth on that. Now, I want to watch that private show…"

* * *

><p>Kyoko had no idea what that was about, but she didn't like it. James was a very cautious man, more than he let off, and generally had a good idea of who to trust and who not to. It seemed like he decided to trust Rin, which she guessed was good. She was more concerned as to why he didn't feel he could trust her in the first place. <em>Is he picking up on something I didn't? <em>She had gotten weird feeling from her, to be honest.

Tomi quickly got a private room arranged, paid by James. Part of her didn't want to do this in front of them, especially since it was obvious that at least the Miyamotos were doing this to mock her for being a stripper. They had been upset with her ever since she refused to leave Tomi's and work as a permanent staff for them full-time. Kyoko simply hadn't wanted to take that risk, and she despised their business. In turn, they tortured her at work.

But, on the other hand, she hadn't gotten to have any sort of sex in ages. She wasn't going to pretend she had anyone she was even remotely interested in sleeping with, but she hadn't even had a chance to _masturbate _for fuck's sakes. She and Yuma share a bed, and Yuma usually goes to bed before her. And she would _never _want Yuma to catch her doing anything like that _ever_. Plus, Rin was cute enough. And most importantly, she had lied to her about how much she would get in tips; 100,000 yen for what was probably going to be a 20 or 30 minute show was actually really good, even by her standards. That would cover most of Yuma's trip to New York too, if she had anything to say about it.

Also, the most important point that drove her crazy was that she needed them more than they needed her. She was the best at what she did, but there were still others who could do comparable jobs. Maybe even for cheaper than her. She didn't want to risk pissing them off and losing her top contract clients. It was by far where most of her money came from, whether it was directly from contracts or indirectly from the overly generous tips.

The room was quite small; not designed to have this many people. The small stage would have easily accommodated two people, but the pole right in the middle made things a bit awkward. The only thing more awkward than the pole in the middle was the blonde girl on the stage who was trying to figure out what she was supposed to do. _This was a bad idea. _

"You can go, Rin."

"Wh-what? Why?" She asked, trying to act less terrified than she was. _This is a disaster in the making. _

"Yeah, why?" Fusao asked.

"Just make her a bit more comfortable and it'll be fine, Koko-chan." James taunted. He had been mostly raised in countries other than Japan, so he had never used honorifics growing up. He only used them here if he wanted to make some sort of point.

"I can put on a show with Koko, just fine." Lady stepped in. The three strippers formed a circle on the stage.

"Really, you should go. You're clearly uncomfortable with this, and it was a bad idea for me to let them push so much on you so soon. It's fine that you can't do it, ok? It won't be a big deal if you just leave now." Kyoko hated trying to be reassuring; she felt like she was really bad at it. She could handle Yuma, mostly because she knew everything there was to know about her. But other people? Kyoko didn't need them, so she never bothered to try to figure them out. Which made this really, really difficult.

"She's telling the truth, really. I can do something with her; we do shows like this for them a lot. Don't feel bad, it's completely understandable." Lady smiled gently and genuinely. Lady turned to the spectators.

"Alright, sorry folks, we're not getting a show from these two, but if it's satisfactory Koko and I can-"

"EE!" Kyoko shrieked in a way that was more girly than she would like to admit she could shriek. But she really was not expecting Rin to grab her and force her down beneath her.

"Don't. Tell. Me. What. I. Can't. Do." She growled at her. Kyoko wouldn't have even expected this front the blonde. She was so used to being the authoritarian that it was odd, almost exciting to be on the other side of it. She could feel a familiar dull throb growing with intensity between her thighs; something she hadn't felt for a long time. And honestly, she had missed it.

The dominating rookie quickly lost her edge. She looked down at her pinned mentor beneath her, sort of asking for guidance with her eyes. Kyoko rolled her own (_fucking rookies_), before quickly flipping them over.

"Fair enough, _kohai_, but don't expect me to lay back and let you do as you please." She smirked in her trademark devilishly seductive way. Years of practice perfected it, and it got people, men and women riled up every time. It certainly made the younger girl beneath her squirm a bit. She liked how all it took was a look to make her aroused.

While it was exciting to be on the submissive side every once in a while, she couldn't deny that she was more comfortable being in control. She _loved _the feeling of having that power over somebody else. She liked the control, and she loved feeling like the alpha; it didn't happen often enough anymore. She especially loved when they _begged _her to give them what they wanted. And this girl was going to beg tonight.

She leaned down to kiss her, but she knew their audience; they wouldn't be interested in anything lovey-dovey. They wanted rough and hard, a demand she was happy to oblige. The kiss was more like bites with occasionally licks, just the way she liked it. The only thing more delicious than being in charge was the way she would catch her student's gasps and light mewls with her lips.

She let her hands explore the body beneath her. The girl clearly worked out, having slight definition in her abs, but otherwise she was soft, slightly malleable. Kyoko had wondered what her body would feel like when she had first seen her dance that afternoon; she had no idea her curiosity would be satisfied so quickly. But, Kyoko was never a patient person so she wasn't complaining in the slightest.

It made her relieved to feel her partner relaxing a bit. Her body was no longer as rigid and felt more like it was melting against her and the floor. Her student's hands were starting to do some roaming of their own, particularly grabbing at the mass of red hair above her and nails scratching any skin that happened to be in their way. Her open legs were wrapping themselves around Kyoko's torso, keeping her where they decided she belonged. Yeah, Kyoko was way happier with this.

"The safe word is stop." She whispered to Rin, whose face was flushed as she writhed beneath her. She went to start kissing, sucking, and nipping along her jaw line.

"That's not very creative."

"Fine, what do you propose then?" She asked with a bit of aggravation in her voice. She was more focused on more important matters at hand, and if Rin wasn't then she clearly wasn't doing her job. She grinded her pelvis against that of the girl's beneath her and heard her let out a soft groan.

"It doesn't matter, that's fine." She breathed out. _That's better_. As a reward, she started to suck on her neck. It was exhilarating being here; almost predatory. She also knew that the neck was an underappreciated part of the human body during foreplay. There was something about the vulnerability of having someone else at your neck, someone who could do anything they wanted to you, that was always exciting.

"Can I take your dress off?" She kissed a particularly harshly made love bite, only partially caring if the act soothed it at all.

"You can take it off." She responded, eyes glazed over as she stared at the ceiling. Kyoko nodded, hands coming underneath the girl's raised legs to grasp at the bottom of the skirt that had already ridden up over the course of their actions. The way Rin used her legs against Kyoko's lower back to push herself off the ground, thereby letting Kyoko get her dress off was strangely arousing to the red head. She casually flung the dress onto the ground beneath the stage. It was odd how even though it was such a see-through dress, the blonde looked much more naked now.

"Stars on or off?" She asked while kneading the breasts that had said starfish pasties stuck on. She moved back down to suck and bite at her neck. It was an empowering feeling to hear and feel the girl sucking in a breath.

"On." The red head nodded in understanding as she continued to stimulate the nerves in the girl's neck. She figured there might not be as much point in playing with the breasts that comfortably filled her hands; she couldn't get to the nipples, the most sensitive part after all. But the audience that had been deathly silent for the last five minutes would probably want her to play with them anyways. Which of course was the only reason Kyoko continued her ministrations there.

She finally started to move her mouth downwards, playing with the small areas of skin between the arms of the starfish that covered her. _Might as well get as close as possible. _She could feel the girl's pulse racing when her finger tips grazed over certain parts of her. _Or is that mine? _

She continued her descent downwards, down to the place that would make the girl scream. She had already moved from heavy breaths to adorably soft whimpers. But she wasn't going to stay adorable much longer; not if Kyoko had any say in this.

She lightly traced her fingers up the girl's thighs, slowly but surely getting closer to the base of her core. From this angle, she could already tell that her foreplay had been pretty good. She always got this reaction, but it still boosted her pride. She had learned from one of the best; her first show partner at the club who quit a long time ago.

This trick was a classic. When you finally get your fingers to the panties, you sneak a finger or two into them from underneath, maybe "accidentally" sneaking them inside as you pull the fabric down. It always got a delicious reaction of some sort. She heard Rin let out a shaky breath that neither of them knew she was even holding.

Kyoko sat up on her knees with Rin's legs over her shoulders. She carelessly threw the blue thong behind her, returning her hand to where it had been. Her middle and ring finger slid into the wet folds, seeking the little bump that she knew would drive the new girl crazy. It didn't take long to find it; she could swear she could feel it throbbing. But that might have just been her prideful imagination talking.

Placing the two fingers on either side of it, she started to rub in little circles; slowly at first, but quickly speeding up. She used her other hand to rub the leg hoisted over her shoulder, kissing and nipping at the pale smooth skin of her inner thigh. Things were starting to get heated, and she could see the girl's abs starting to tense. She wasn't on the brink yet, but she was getting there.

It was the worst possible moment for the door to slam open.

"Sorry I was late, I couldn't find you. I didn't realize you would find a room so fa…." The intruder's sentence stopped as he noticed the spectacle before him.

"What's happening here?" He asked with a lecherous grin.

* * *

><p>Sayaka had no idea what was going on but she didn't like it. It had been good; <em>so <em>good. Kyoko clearly knew more about how the female body worked than her ex did. She was pretty sure this was going to be the first time someone else had made her cum with her help. She had even managed to ignore the small audience watching her easily enough. Until that asshole barged in.

"Shut _up _Megumi and sit down." The older Kurosawa snapped. _Megumi? _

Sayaka looked over, and surely enough there was one of her targets, leering at her. Her first thought was that she really wished she had more clothes on, hands instinctively reaching up to cover what little was already covering her breasts. Her second thought was that this clearly proved that these people were dangerous. Ryo would want to know about this.

Sayaka found Megumi repulsive immediately. He was about her height, slim build, but had the face of a rat; narrow jaw, pointed nose, and teeth that were way too large for his face. And he looked like he hadn't had a shower in ten days. He looked exactly like his mug shot. It made sense that he looked that dirty though; he was a drug dealer and distributor who hung around in the darkest corners of town. As a matter of fact, some of the best stuff she had ever bought had been sourced by him.

"Sorry sir." Megumi quickly and quietly apologized before sitting down next to Fusao. _Sir? _Megumi clearly seemed like a subordinate. _Holy shit, I think I might have struck gold here. _

She glanced back up at Kyoko who looked very annoyed with their newest guest. The teacher looked back down at the girl, and her face softened instantly.

"So, where were we?" She asked as her face slid back into that mischievous, sexy smirk she pulled off effortlessly. Sayaka wished she could pull that off. But it was sexy as hell and directed at her so she really didn't care.

The beautiful redhead returned her lips to hers, tongue sliding in to dance with hers. _She's trying to get me back in the mood._ Sayaka sort of appreciated it, but it also drove her nuts. She had to be able to focus on the other people in the room, dammit!

"Megumi, you're going to be at the harbour on Tuesday night, yes?" James asked. Sayaka made the mistake of opening her eyes slightly to glance in his direction. His eyes seemed glazed over as he stared at Sayaka and Kyoko in the middle of the room, mouth agape. Lady was between his legs, head bobbing up and down. _Gross! I thought that wasn't allowed! _

"Definitely. Old Town, right?"

"Would you two _shut the fuck up_?" Suki snapped. _No, don't shut up, this is great! _

"Important business matters, we need to get them out of the way. Just because you're fine with picking up scraps on the streets, doesn't mean everyone here is. International logistics take careful planning. You would _know _that if you had accepted any of my business propositions." James snapped back at her, equally irritated. "Fuck yeah, keep doing that." He said quietly to Lady, eyes closing. Sayaka meanwhile was memorizing every word while trying to make it convincing to the girl on top of her that she was focusing on their current activities.

"Oh fuck off."

"Why don't you all shut up? Now, please." The older Kurosawa asked calmly and politely.

"Can I put my fingers in?" Kyoko whispered to her. She appreciated the constant requests for consent; it was way better than the alternative. She hated appearing this submissive in front of all of these people that. She quickly nodded her head. Sayaka wasn't even sure she could speak if she wanted to.

Kyoko started to kiss her neck again (_Holy hell, this girl really has a thing for necks_) as she put two fingers inside. Kyoko had long, slender fingers, she noted internally. _No pun intended. _

They were the perfect length, combined with Kyoko's obvious experience to reach that spot inside her that seemed to be connect to the same nerve centre that her clit did. Kyoko's mouth started to migrate back down south, following the same sort of pattern as before. It had riled her up before, and it riled her up even more now when it was combined with her quickening pumping hand motions.

Even though she had felt the other girl's mouth moving down on her, it surprised her when she felt a warm, velvety tongue join the fingers that were working her body. Sayaka could tell from all of the stimulation she was getting that it must be fairly awkward for Kyoko, having her hand moving so quickly so close to her face. Her ex always looked like he had more finesse from afar, but oh _god _it never felt anything like this.

She noticed, when she had enough active brain cells to think about it, that the tongue playing down there didn't seem to have any sort of pattern. Kyoko kept changing it. It still felt great though.

Suddenly, one move in particular, something that felt like her tongue was moving in and out quickly made Sayaka's toes curl. That combined with the three fingers (_When did that happen?_) made her shiver and let out some kind of noise she wished she didn't make.

And then Kyoko did it again. And again. And again.

"Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. Oh god! Please! _Ah!_" She was getting really, really close. Kyoko went faster, with the same action. It was a lot. It was so much. It was too much. Sayaka could feel the pressure building up in her core, reaching a peak.

"_AH!" S_he felt it explode, melting inside her legs and stomach. But it wasn't stopping. She had never felt anything like this, it just keep going. She was pretty sure she was shaking. Kyoko didn't stop moving or doing that _thing _with her tongue. She could feel that peak of pressure stubbornly staying here, longer than it ever had before. Usually it would go away after a second or two, but this was one felt like…_wow. _

It finally let go, strong pulses of pleasure flowing through her. She was so glad that Kyoko pulled away when she did, because it was starting to become painful. When she finally refocused herself, she could hear and feel how hard she was breathing.

Her high was broken when she heard the rest of the room cheer. Suddenly, the red that coloured her cheeks wasn't from arousal but humiliation and shame. Kyoko seemed to be able to read her like an open book.

"You did great. Are you ok?" She asked as she pulled Sayaka in for a hug. It was a small gesture, but Sayaka really, really appreciated it. It helped keep her from crying. She nodded against the leather outfit and hugged her back tightly.

"Aaawww, is she embarrassed now? That's so precious." James taunted. Lady looked towards them, a bit of white liquid in her hair that Sayaka wished she hadn't noticed.

"Precious? Hey, Koko, Rin, what do you think of that stage name?"

"That's obnoxious." Sayaka protested against Kyoko's shoulder.

"That's perfect." Koko grinned back.

"Um, sorry, excuse me, Koko?" A meek-looking girl squeaked from the doorway. She had a medium build, wore dull colours, had dull glasses, and dull black straight hair. She looked completely and utterly dull; very inconspicuous. _When the hell did she get here?! _

"What can I do for you Sango?" Kyoko asked.

"Tomi would like to see you in his office when you have a chance." She said quietly. She also had a flush on her cheeks. _Oh god, how much did she see? _

"Got it. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"He also asked me to apologize to you and Rin about the stage mix-up."

"Huh?" Sayaka asked. _That was completely mine and Kyoko's fault. _

"Oh, you know, scheduling you for the first night before explaining how the stage worked? That was a mistake on my part. It was supposed to be Nuna going up tonight, but I guess I accidentally wrote 'new'. I get things like that messed up all the time." She smiled politely. _Did she cover for us?_

"I don't know why Tomi puts up with you." Yuta said with scathing honesty. If Sango was hurt, she didn't show it.

"I'm lucky he's a very nice man." She said softly. Sayaka felt terrible.

"Honestly, that's not what happened, I-" Sayaka started. Kyoko shushed her.

"It wasn't a problem at all, Sango. Rin is much more talented than Nuna anyways, so it was a good thing for the club that she went up." Kyoko said convincingly truthfully. Sayaka made a mental note that Kyoko was a skilled liar.

Sango nodded, and left.

* * *

><p>This had been a productive evening for Kyoko. She made more generous tips from staying with the others in the private room that James had rented for the night. After the show, they just spoke about more casual things such as news, gossip ("strategizing" as Yuta called it), and general bitching about things. She also ate about half of their chicken wings.<p>

After Rin had her clothes back on and calmed down a bit, Kyoko started to make fun of her, to the great amusement of everyone.

"So, you're an 'M', huh?"

"What are you talking about?" Rin said in a way that implied that she did not really want to know what she was talking about.

"You know. 'A'" She stuck her tongue out of her mouth and moved it in the shape of a miniscule a. "'B'" She did the same for a miniscule B. "And you're an 'M'." She smirked. Rin was beet red. Everyone, aside from Fusao who lightly blushed thought it was hilarious.

"That might be good to know for later, eh Fusao? I've seen the way you've been eyeing Precious up all night." James joked to the younger Kurosawa. His face became just as red as Rin's.

"I'm gonna go see the boss. Be back in a few. Save me some wings." She decided she was out of stripper mode for a bit. No one seemed to mind. She got a non-committal grunt from somebody to indicate that they heard her. Otherwise, only Rin seemed to show any sign of caring that she was leaving.

Kyoko wasn't sure how to feel about being called to Tomi's office. She could be in trouble if Sango lied about thinking she messed up. She doubted that was the case, since in general the scatterbrained girl was an honest one; horribly suited for being a personal assistant, but honest.

Tomi's office was hidden on the second floor amongst the private rooms. You wouldn't guess that his office was actually an office until you went in. Heck, even inside the office you couldn't really tell. All it had was a desk with nothing on it, and nothing in the drawers. He kept all of this records hidden somewhere else.

"What can I do for you, boss?" Kyoko said as she closed the door.

"I was wondering if you had any time to do a grocery run this evening?" He said casually. It was the other alternative. He had a contract for her.

"Oh yeah? What do you need?"

"I need you to pick up some more scotch." _He needs me to hide a body. _

"Any preference from where?"

"The store in the industrial area near the docks, if you could. I'd like the bottles that come in the orange box." She hated the fucking riddles he sometimes used; it had happened more than once where she couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. Tomi was paranoid of wires, which she didn't mind. The fewer people who could find out about her other jobs, the better. In this case, she assumed he was talking about an orange storage container based on the location: docks in the industrial area."

"Any preference for what flavour or age?"

"Preferable something sweet." _Woman's body_. "I don't want anything too old or expensive. Maybe something around twenty or thirty years old? That would be good enough for our patrons, I'm sure." _A woman between the ages of twenty and thirty. _

"I think I can pick that up. I'm short on cash though. Would you be able to spot me some to pick it up?"

"Of course, Kyoko." He smiled pleasantly, handing her a small backpack that looked quite full. _This was a very productive night. _

* * *

><p>This had been a productive evening for Sayaka. She found one of her main targets on the first night, and suspected that she found even bigger ones. She couldn't wait to tell her boss tomorrow morning!<p>

"So, Rin, was it really as good as it looked?" Suki asked. Sayaka decided that she didn't care if she had to put up with this. These were clearly some bad people and she wanted to be the one to get them behind bars!

"How good did it look?" She asked coyly.

"Pretty damn good. I'm wondering how much I'd have to pay to get her to do that to me." She grinned. Her brother made a face, but otherwise ignored it.

"Do you want to put on a show with her when she comes back, Suki-san?" James joked. "I'll pay Koko's charges if you do, as long as I get a front row seat!" Suki threw a chicken bone at him.

"Oh shut it."

"Speaking of paying, Kurosawa-sama…"

"What is the shipment on Tuesday?" He asked uninterestedly.

"Fifty pounds of pure Sunshine snow. Straight from our favourite Filipino friend." Sunshine snow…Sayaka had heard of that. It was a new, refined type of cocaine that was tearing its way through the streets of Japan. Sources said it was just as good as Colombian, but cheaper.

"60,000,000 yen should cover it, yes?"

"Make it 65,000,000 for shipping and handling on my part. I have to maintain a lot of connections for you, you know." Yuta looked displeased. James stood his ground.

"Fine. I was prepared for that anyways." He said as passed the brief case over. _That is so cliché. _

"You play it old school don't you, Kurosawa?" James asked unimpressed, briefly glancing through the case on his lap and fanning out the stacks to make sure they were all there.

"Never underestimate the value of the classics Watanabe. They are classics for a reason, after all."

Meanwhile, the figurative pen and notebook in Sayaka's head was racing to collect all of this information. Her superiors didn't have her wear a wire of any sort tonight since they figured she wouldn't find anything on her first night. That, and they heard that Tomi was paranoid about rats and undercover agents coming in, so everyone was subject to random searches. Kyoko hadn't mentioned it, now that Sayaka thought about it; maybe it was so she could be caught off guard? Sayaka figured there wasn't much value in thinking about it too much.

Her four hour shift ended faster than she thought it would. After the show at the beginning, no one really demanded anything else of her. In fact, she got to eat some of Tomi's famous chicken wings with them, which weren't as good as she was expecting.

"How was your first shift Yamasaki-san?" Sango asked in the dressing room. Sayaka jumped about a foot in the air, not expecting the girl behind her.

"Ah, it was good! Really good, thank you. And thank you so much for covering for us. I can't believe I walked right out on stage like that. Was anybody mad?" She was concerned. People had to like her.

"They're mad, but not at you. Don't worry Yamasaki-san."

"You can just call me Rin, it's fine. I'm sorry, I don't think I remember your name."

"Oh, Sango is fine. I'm not one for using nicknames, if you don't mind." _Huh? _

"Um, sure, that's fine. One of the clients today started calling me Rinny. I didn't like it. I guess I'm not a fan of nicknames either." Sango smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Yes, that one's a bit eccentric." She quickly looked around behind her, before pulling Sayaka into one of the costume closets and shutting the door. Sayaka was pressed tightly against her chest. Sayaka had no idea what was going on.

"Listen to me, and listen to me very closely, alright?" She whispered harshly. Sayaka just nodded dumbly. She realized that it was pitch black, so the girl probably couldn't even see her.

"Those clients you were with tonight aren't regular people. They're bad. They're _dangerous_. They've done horrible things to some of the girls here before. I thought it was terrible when I found out Kyoko was your mentor because she spends most of her time with them. There's a reason for that. She can handle clients like that. She's probably the only one that can. They don't try to mess with her. But if you're with them and she's not there…terrible things might happen to you. So _don't _service those clients, no matter how well they tip. It won't be worth it. Do you understand?"

Sayaka was speechless. She just nodded again, fully aware that the other girl warning her might not be able to see her. A light flicked on.

"Is everything ok in here?" Kyoko asked skeptically, looking between the two. _Oh shit. _

"Yes. We were just talking about the possibility of Rin giving some of the new girls pole dancing classes. We just didn't want to talk about it in front of everyone else." _She's a fast thinker._

"Why the hell should she do it? I'm way better than she is." Kyoko snapped haughtily.

"I thought you hated teaching. I'm sorry I hadn't thought to consider you." She said quietly and pleasantly. "And Tomi said he thought you were too busy."

"Well tell him to ask me before he decides if I'm too busy or not. And ask me before you decide if I'm interested or not."

"Are you interested?"

"No, but that's not the point! Ah, fuck it." Kyoko began to storm off but stopped before turning around.

"I also wanted to ask. Rin, are you good with working as a double act more often? I lied about getting that much money in tips regularly. That's actually really good money. I also think Kurosawa's son really liked you. He would be a good regular for you. I can't handle both him and his father; that would be weird."

"Uh, yeah, sure! I'm free pretty much any night except Thursdays and Saturdays, if that's ok." She quickly glanced at Sango who kept a blank face. "Only if that's possible, of course."

"We can work around that. Most girls want the Saturday shift, so that won't be too hard to avoid." Sayaka should have felt guilty for trying to get out of duty to keep her regular Saturday night movie and hang out with Hitomi and Kyousuke. But at the same time, they had done it for years and she loved it; it was just good work-life balance, you know?

"Can you put her on for Friday? I could use her for the double act." Kyoko interjected. Sango agreed. Kyoko nodded and then turned around and stormed off. Or maybe that was just how she walked.

"You're going to regret that." Sango warned. Sayaka shrugged.

"I need the money." She lied. "But I do appreciate you looking out for me, really. It's nice to have a friend here." She smiled, honestly. She could see a small smile forming on Sango's face too. _Does she not have many friends here? _"Also, you're good at thinking fast." Sayaka complimented.

"Not really. I'd been planning for that conversation for the last two hours. Another thing I wanted to warn you about: your mentor has a bit of a temper on her." _

* * *

><p>Kyoko picked up her phone and called Yuma immediately. Yuma <em>might <em>send a text or two every once in a blue moon. She was going through that annoying rebellious stage right now. But 8 texts and a voicemail? Last time she got that many messages, Yuma had set the curtains on fire with the popcorn maker; she still had no idea how that happened. _If that brat burned the fucking kitchen down, so help me God…_

"Aneki-chan! Are you off work now?"

"Yeah, I'm off. Is the kitchen ok?"

"Uh... yeah, it's fine?" Yuma said, confusion evident in her voice.

"Ok great. What's going on? Are you at home?"

"No, I'm in the industrial district, outside the good ramen store." That was a great ramen store. Started up by one of the former Mitakihara residents, so it never reminded her of anything. "Remember that familiar from two weeks ago? The one with the creepy doll face on one side of the head and the skull on the other?"

"Ah yeah. Did it grow up?"

"Pfft, not only that. It grew up and some new girl tried taking it on without cleaning her soul gem before, from the looks of it. We've got a barrier with two witches, both pretty strong. I didn't think I could take them on my own. Can you come over here and we can get some ramen after?"

Kyoko grinned. "You got it, kiddo. Uhh, wait, you're in the industrial district, right? Where are the witches, exactly?"

"Near the ports right now. I didn't want to get too close in case they went after magical girls like that one from a few year ago did. Why?" Oh, this was too perfect. Christmas was coming early this year!

"I got a contract to do in that area; we can get two birds with one stone. We're gonna make it rain tonight!"

* * *

><p>Sayaka picked up her phone and called Kyousuke immediately after she snuck out and got out of costume. She got messages from him all the time, but 15 texts and 4 voicemails weren't normal. And it was weird as hell that he wouldn't say exactly what was going on. She listened to the familiar ring intently, pacing back and forth quickly, agitated. <em>Pick up, pick up, pick up. <em>

"Sayaka! Thank you so much for calling. Where were you?" He asked with evident relief in his voice.

"Sorry, I was working tonight. What's wrong? Are you ok?"

"Yea-No, No I'm not ok. Sayaka I need you to come over right now, please!" Sayaka's protective instincts went into overdrive.

"Wait right there! I'll call some of the squad, we'll be there right away! Don't move. Are you in danger?" Her authoritative cop voice was something she still wasn't used to hearing herself, but it was gradually becoming more and more a basic part of her character.

"No! Sayaka you don't need to call your friends from work; it's nothing like that. Please just come over, by yourself. It's more of a personal matter between friends, ok? Nothing illegal. Please just….just come over right now…" His pleading voice never ceased to soften her. She sighed, relenting.

"Ok, ok. Just…wait there. I can be there in twenty minutes."

"Thank you, Sayaka." Something about the way she could hear his smile through his voice over the phone always made her heart twinge a bit in pain.

* * *

><p>The door to the rusty orange train cart creaked open. Thankfully, it was still cold out so the body hadn't decomposed much. Had it been summer, this would have been a disgusting, disgusting job.<p>

"Aneki-chan! What are you doing!? We need to go before it gets away!" Yuma yelled near the opening of the barrier. It was pulsing with an angry, negative energy; the dark emotions of the magical girls the witches had spawned from creating a thick miasma of despair.

"Hang on a goddamn minute!" She yelled as she hoisted the woman's body over her shoulder. She was quite petite, even though her overly large breast implants felt awkward against her back. This was exactly why she hoped she would never fall in love. Those corny love songs weren't lying about it killing you. Kyoko was sure the songs must have meant the heartache would do it, but a hammer to the head would work too. This woman might have just been a hooker though.

"Is there anyone out there? Any security cameras?" A moment after she said that, she felt a sonic wave.

"Not anymore. Coast is clear. Now let's GO!"

Kyoko literally trusted Yuma with her life, but she still looked all directions anyways before exiting the crate. There really was no one around.

"Great, let's go in now. " She said, running towards the entrance. She had never seen a witch's kiss like it. It was green and purple with an insignia that just looked like it didn't fit together at all; clearly a side effect of the two witches cohabiting the barrier.

"Who is she?" Yuma asked hesitantly, pointing to the woman Kyoko was carrying unceremoniously. Making bodies "disappear" was one of Kyoko's more common jobs, but she never did one with Yuma. She was doing all of this so the girl could have a normal life, after all.

"Some broad. Don't worry about it, don't look at it. You ready for this?" Yuma nodded, eyes still focused on the petite woman's head, where the short black hair seemed to be matted with blood and the skull caved in. She had seen worse, and Kyoko knew that, but it didn't make this any more pleasant to see.

The two ran into the barrier, seeing the strangest conglomeration of familiars they had ever encountered. The familiars of the two witches seemed to have combined, leading to doll and skull-faced insects with fairy wings. That didn't even compare to the barrier; a formerly perfect, gothic dollhouse that was now arranged as something like a beehive; each tunnel like a different room. Kyoko jumped into one that looked like a bedroom and lay the body there, closing the deceased woman's eyes. A sentimental part of her decided to lay the emerald flowers on the bedside table on her chest, nestled between the silicon with her cold, pale hands crossed on top of them. She heard Yuma jump up behind her, but didn't move to acknowledge her. She wouldn't let her guard down, but she wanted to have a brief moment of silence if she could.

"Do you like doing this, onee-chan?" She whispered. Kyoko didn't say anything, but after a moment simply shook her head. She could see her soul gem darken a bit. This was not the place to mourn or reflect on poor life choices.

"Let's go kill some witches."

* * *

><p>The door to Kyousuke's apartment creaked open. He really needed to put some W40 on those hinges or whatever that thing was called. Some of the guys at work seemed like the burly manly-man types who would know; not a crippled former classical musician though.<p>

"Sayaka! Thank you so much for coming." He gave that beautiful, friendly smile that would always only be friendly. Sayaka ran to the designer baby blue couch his parents had ordered for him. It was neat in that the arm rest had something like a plush hook that Kyousuke could use to push it up. He could then push himself out of the wheel chair and onto the couch, then pull it back down. All of his furniture was cleverly accessible like that, so he could look like he lived as normal a life as possible.

"Yeah, of course! What's wrong though? Are you alright?" She said, looking at both sides of his face, ready to do any first aid."

"Yeah, I'm fine…it's not me who's in trouble." The concern on Sayaka's face immediately came off, replaced by a look of pure fury.

"No. No. Not this again. Not this a-fucking-gain. How many times do I have to go over this with you?!" She screamed.

"He'll talk to you! Please, his parents are freaking out. He hasn't called in over a week, they're worried he's in trouble or…." He couldn't even finish that thought.

"And you know what? That's too bad, it really is. But that comes with the lifestyle. Believe it or not, I would know!" Her last sentence was meant to be a passive aggressive snark, but the volume simply made it frightening.

"Come on, you don't need to go see him or anything. Just call him, make sure he's…alive. His parents are scared….I'm scared. Please, you're the only one he'd talk to."

"Kyousuke, please listen to me. I don't think you understand. He's…he's what we call a bad tie in rehab. He connects me to my old life and he _actively _tries to get me back into it. And…and you don't know." Her voice cracked. "You don't know how hard it is to stay away when it's right in front of me. It's not like being a diet and trying to not eat a piece of cake that's in front of you, ok? It takes way more than discipline. It would be like not eating for a month, and being told that a decadent, beautiful….incredible piece of your favourite kind of cake being offered to you is laced with arsenic. But you wouldn't even be able to taste it…it's like you wouldn't know it was there. And it's so hard to remind yourself that it's not worth it."

She was trying not to cry. The anger in her voice was gone.

"Sayaka, I get it; you have had a difficult time healing. I have too. My accident was over six years ago and I lost the ability to do what I was most passionate about. Healing is not easy, but the only way to fully do it is by facing it. So this would be good for you!"

"What? No! What you and I went through is completely different!" Sayaka said flabbergasted. "Healing is hard for both of us, but in completely different ways. Spending time with me isn't going to make you any less able to walk because you can't anyways!"

"You're right; I can't." He said with a deadpan expression; Sayaka cringed.

"Look, I'm sorry. I don't get what you're going through, and you don't get what I'm going through. I guess…I guess the best way to look at it is like…ugh" she had no idea how to explain it without hurting him more, or throwing it in his face that could never walk again.

"You've been clean for two years, Sayaka. You make yourself sound like you're some weakling with no will whatsoever. You're not! I know you can talk to him. I even think that you could save his life as long as you actually believed that weren't powerless like that program tells you. What happened to being a hero like you always wanted to be?" _Ouch. _

"I gave up on that a long time ago."

"Why?"

"You know damn well why! Just because you weren't there doesn't mean it didn't happen!" She actively blocked out the memories of Mitakihara Middle School. After the night she had just had, she couldn't deal with this.

"Listen, I've had a really, really long day. You have no idea. I can't do this right now. I'm sure he's fine. If he's not…well there's nothing we can do about that." She said.

"Don't you care about him at all? The four of us have been best friends for six years, and you dated him for over a year!"

"I don't think getting high with someone and screwing them counts as dating." _Even though I do call him my ex._

"Well, it did for him. That means something; that _has _to mean something. Are you completely heartless, Sayaka? You don't sound like the girl I've been best friends with since we were kids at all." She hated that puppy-dog look. She despised it. It was adorable when it was about other things, but not this. He knew how to play her like a fiddle.

"Fine. Fine. I don't care. Give me your phone and I'll call his place."

"I think he'd be more likely to answer it if were from your phone."

"I'm already calling him for you, be happy with that. I don't want his number on my phone, and I don't want him to have mine. He's still a bad tie and I don't want us to be connected in any way."

"You can't be serious…" Kyousuke more said to himself. Nevertheless, he took out his phone. Sayaka quickly found his name in the contacts and pressed "Call."

It rang. And rang. And rang. It went to the standard voicemail; the lady with the Tokyo accent saying that this customer was not available. "Please leave a message after the beep." It beeped.

"Hey. It's Sayaka. People think you're dead. If you call back in the next two minutes, you'll talk to me. Bye." She hung up. The room was silent for a painfully awkward moment.

"That…really? That's it? He's not going to call back to that!" Kyousuke exclaimed. However, he was quickly proved wrong as the phone started buzzing immediately, "Nakazawa" displaying on caller ID. Sayaka would have been smug, but this was nothing to be smug about. She answered, as she said she would in the message.

"Saaaayyyyyaaaakkkkaaaaa, I miss you! Where have you been?" He said in that tone that he always had when he was high out of his mind; probably heroine, their old favourite, but it could have been cocaine. Maybe even sunshine snow…

"I've been working. The important question is where the hell have you been? Everyone's been freaking out."

"Have you?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Nakazawa laughed.

"Playing stone cold as ever. I can see right through you, you know. You don't need to play tough with me. I accept you for everything you are. You used to accept me too. Why don't you accept me anymore, Sayaka?"

"Because I'm not fucked up on drugs anymore, and you wouldn't 'accept' the way you are now either if you weren't."

"So proud, Miss Rehabilitated. Whatever, I don't want to fight; you're hashing my buzz. Are you going to come over, or what?"

"How can I come over if I don't know where you are?"

"I'm at my place."

"Your place….you're at your apartment? That one you've been living in for the last 10 months?" She said, voice rising in volume and frustration while looking eyes with Kyousuke.

"Yeah, I've been here all week. Found some wicked shows on Netflix. Come over." _Are you fucking kidding me? _

"Did you check his apartment?" She asked Kyousuke. He looked sheepish.

"I wasn't looking him, his parents were…and I can't get to his apartment. It's not wheelchair accessible." Sayaka always forgot that. She felt shitty after that.

"Fuck, you're with golden boy right now, aren't you? That's why you're calling? He made you? Well I'm curious, Sayaka. Who's better at fucking: me or him?"

"What the hell, Nakazawa?! He's dating Hitomi! You know that!" She vaguely registered in the back of her mind that that was the wrong reason for not sleeping with him.

"Really? That's weird, because you're totally being his bitch. Wait, I guess that's nothing new, is it? Seems like a waste that you're this whipped and not even getting any cock for it."

"Jesus Christ, you're disgusting! Don't talk about either of us like that!"

"You're hashing my buzz. Are you coming over or not?"

"Are you dying right now?"

"Dying of loneliness, babe."

"If I still remember you right, more like horniness."

"Are you going to save me from that too? Because you totally can." _I walked right into that one. _

"No, I'm not. You're fine." Kyousuke was making wild gestures. "Hang on a second." She blocked the mouth piece with her hand. "What is it?" She whispered agitatedly. He signalled for him to pass him the phone. She didn't want to keep talking to him anymore than she had too.

"Nakazawa! Hi! It's been too long, how are you?"

Sayaka just looked at him, hoping her expression clearly displayed her sense of disappointment and betrayal. It only stung more when he ignored her in favour of chatting amicably with the lost lamb of a friend who didn't even give a damn about him. She zipped up her coat, turned on her heel, and marched out the door. She slammed it way harder than necessary. It helped keep the tears that were threatening to spill from falling from her eyes that had way too much dark makeup caked on.

* * *

><p>Kyoko sifted through the money she made last night making a mental count. At the club alone, she made over 170,000 yen in tips over her four hour shift which was actually really high compared to normal. <em>I could get used to this<em>. Plus, she didn't mind using the new girl as a prop. It's not like she really had had an existent sex life over the past three years or anything.

Then, of course, with the collection of the 1,000,000 yen from the contract, she was more than set to send Yuma to New York. _Especially since that sucker of a teacher is totally going to end up paying for half of it. _

Her mind wandered back to the new girl as she walked downstairs to pick up the mail. She was cute…really cute. She still absolutely hated her hair. But Kyoko had never liked blondes much; they always reminded her of a certain someone she would rather not be reminded of. Maybe that was it?

Everything piece of mail in her hands looked pretty standard; rent bill, electricity, junk mail, water, junk mail, heating…City of Kazamino Legal Department? That was new.

She opened up the chunky-looking letter when she sat back down at the kitchen table. _Must be that damn ticket I got. I'm surprised they're that fast though. _

She read the subject and all of her hopes of this letter being about a trivial ticket vanished.

"Dear Miss Sakura,

"As per by-law 748B "Mandatory Conditions of Public Premises", the City of Kazamino must make regular visits to all public premises to ensure the safety of the public is assured. As such, we visited your property located at 2642 Okinawa Blvd, "Open Eyes Reform Baptist Church of Kazamino" on February 25, 2032.

" Our appraisers determined that the state of your property was unacceptable for public safety. In order to maintain custody of this property, the following repairs must be done:"

Kyoko's eyes widened with horror as she read the extensive list. Repair windows (which she had broken herself in fits of fury), patch holes in walls, replace foundation suspected to have been damaged in Mitakihara storm of 2026 , and more.

"We trust that your insurance will cover all damages relating to the Mitakihara storm of 2026. As such, we have clearly specified which damages were suspected to have been a result of Acts of God.

"Please be aware that failure to sufficiently rehabilitate the property by September 30, 2032 will result in its seizure.

"Should you have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact us at-"

Kyoko immediately picked up the phone and dialled the number. She didn't know if the building even had insurance, but consider that her Dad died seven years ago and was broke as shit for a lot of the time before that, she doubted that they had many any payments in almost ten years. She sure hadn't. The more she thought about it, the more illegal that seemed to be.

"Thank you for contacting the City of Kazamino. If you know the extension-"

She angrily starting pounding in the extension, thereby cutting off the automated voice that agitated her more than it should have.

"You are being transferred to the Legal Department. One moment please."

Some sort of admittedly catchy elevator music began to play. Kyoko paced nervously. _This is bad. This is bad. Shit, this is really, really bad. _

"Good morning, Kazamino Legal Services. How can I help you?" A courteous-sounding woman greeted.

"My name is Sakura Kyoko and I got a letter from your department saying my property was going to be seized. What the fuck?!" She winced. _Dammit Kyoko, get your shit together! You need them to like you! _

"Ah, I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I'm just really scared about all of this."

"Yes, that's very understandable Sakura-san. Could I have your file number please?" The woman said unfazed. Kyoko supposed she must get phone calls like this all the time. She recited the jumble of numbers and letters from the top of the page.

"Ah, the church on Okinawa. Are they still providing sermons? My mother used to go every weekend a number of years ago. She said those sermons changed her life." Kyoko winced.

"Yeah…not anymore. The minister died and no one took over. The church has been in my custody ever since." The woman gasped.

"Oh my goodness, yes, I remember hearing about that. Are you his daughter?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"I am so, so sorry for your loss."

"Yeah, it's kind of old news now. It's fine. Thank you though."

"How old were you at the time you were given the rights to the property?"

"I was thirteen. Why?"

"A thirteen year old was given the rights to a large public property?" _Shit_.

"Uh, well, I'm not so sure-"

"This was clearly an oversight on the city's part. I can see from the reports that it is in an advanced state of disrepair, and it's no wonder. A teenager never should have been given that responsibility, especially considering the circumstances. Did the city talk to your foster parents or institution about this? Do they have any records?"

"I never had any foster parents and I sure as hell never went to any damn institution." The police mentioned putting her in one right after her family died but she ran for it. No one ever looked for her though so it was fine.

"Who was looking after you?"

"No one. I looked after myself."

The line was silent.

"You have been looking after yourself and a large public property since you were thirteen." It didn't sound like a question.

"Yes."

"Had your family left you a trust? A guardian? Anything or anyone?"

"No. My family was in debt for years. After we got popular most of the money went towards paying it off or getting more stuff for the church. All I got was the church, I guess. And we didn't have any close family. We never really had a lawyer come in to go over it or anything. I don't think my parents even had a will. They sure didn't have any money though."

The line was silent again.

"There are a number of issues here that need to be addressed. I would recommend consulting a lawyer."

"About the building?"

"Yes, about that too. Did you have insurance on it? I am guessing that no one would have told you about that."

"No, they sure didn't. Please, this church is all I have left of my family. I don't want to lose it. My father, even though he was very ill mentally when he died, would not have wanted me to lose it. What should I do?" Kyoko wasn't even trying to be manipulative. She wasn't even sure if she could use her enchantment powers over the phone.

"The appraiser estimated that there was about 80,000,000 yen in damages. I would not suppose you have that kind of money." Another statement instead of a question.

"No. Saving money has never really been my strong point." There wasn't much of a reason to save when you were probably going to die within the next few years. Kyoko liked to live as large as she could. The only thing she had for Yuma if she were to die was a hefty life insurance policy she had taken out on herself and put Yuma as the sole beneficiary.

"I would recommend seeking legal counsel immediately Sakura-san. Tell them everything you told me. They may be able to help you more than I can. Osawa and Associates are excellent for these kinds of cases. Is there anything else I can help you with?" Kyoko got the impression that the lady was very uncomfortable and wanted her off the line. _What's her problem?_

"You could call off the order to take my church."

"Please consult the law firm I suggested and they will contact our office further. Remember to tell them everything you have just told me. Thank you for your time Sakura-san." And with that, she hung up the phone. _Bitch. _

This was going to be a problem.

* * *

><p>Sayaka sifted through the money she made last night making a mental count. She had earned over 150,000 yen on her first night. In four hours she made 140,000 yen. All in paper money.<p>

She was ashamed that her mind began to do a mental count of how many hits that would buy her. This was going to be a problem and she was going to be going back the following night. She was scheduled for three to four shifts per week. _I'm fucked. _

"So Miki, how did last night go?" Ryo asked from behind his modest wooden desk. While the desk was small and looked like it could below to a rookie like her, the walls of his office spoke otherwise. For being only 34 years old, Ryo had earned some of the most prestigious honours officers in Japan could earn, many of which took people decades of work to get one. He was one of the best cops there was and had plenty to do after the Mitakihara disaster gave birth to a huge crime bubble that he was still working on popping.

An advantage of having such a man as her supervisor was that he did not look only at experience; he could see the potential of her younger staff and pushed them to their limits. He was well aware of her past with drugs, and thus avoided sending her into crack houses, but he didn't feel the need to keep her behind a desk. Sayaka had no idea what he saw in her, but she was grateful every day for whatever it was.

"It was alright. It's different. Really, really different."

"Did you start to make any friends?" _This isn't first grade Ryo. _

"Yes, I've made a few. My mentor's clients are mostly criminals so I have a connection there. She's also proposed that we do a double routine so I have been getting into private rooms with them. There's going to be a shipment of sunshine snow coming in on Tuesday to the harbour in Old Town."

Ryo spat out his coffee.

"You found that out already? You've been there one night!"

"People talk pretty liberally when they're in a private room, I guess."

"Fantastic work Miki! Keep reporting these things to me. Just remember to take everything at face value and don't show a particularly strong interest in anything like this, ok? They might be feeding your wrong information to find out if you're an agent or not. Just be a fly on the wall." _Well, I'm something but I wouldn't call myself a fly on the wall._

"So you don't think the shipment is real?"

"Oh, it's real. You're not our only undercover agent. We had been tipped off about this last week. I'm still impressed that you found out about that on your first night. Damn Miki, what did you do?"

"Uhh…"

"Oh, right. Well I guess you might not want to talk about it. Is everything you're doing legal?"

"I think so?" _Is live pornography illegal?_

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the room. The closed door muffled most of the sounds from the bustling office, but not all of them. They just sat there and looked at each other uncomfortably. Ryo leaned over his desk and gestured for Sayaka to come closer.

"If anyone asks, everything you do is legal there. I don't care if you do a few questionable things, as long as you're comfortable and you're not hurting anyone, got it? But you didn't hear that from me." He whispered. She nodded.

"And how is the environment there. Do you think you can handle it?" She knew exactly what he was talking about.

"I think it's going to be hard, to be honest. I'm not sure if I was the best decision to take on this assignment."

"You'll be great at this, Miki. Of the three choices we had, you have the best base instincts for being an undercover. I see a lot of myself in you, you know. And I know you're strong enough to not cave into any temptations like that. Just remember that. You've been clean for almost two years now."

She nodded, facial expression full of confidence, but inside she was terrified and not so sure.

"I have to ask. You found out about that shipment. Was that from Megumi? Our intel said he was only an intermediary."

"Well, he was there but he wasn't the one who was talking about it."

"So who did?" He asked while taking a sip of his coffee.

"Watanabe James and Kurosawa Yuta."

He spat out his coffee again.

"You met Kurosawa?!"

"Yeah, he's one of my mentor's regulars. Who is he?"

Ryo was silent. The silence was uncomfortable, but not because it was awkward like the one from a few moments ago. This was tense.

"We suspect he is the major supplier of all of Kazamino's drugs. We haven't been able to prove anything yet though. We've tried arresting him a few times but he gets off every time. It seems like he has someone else getting them in. To be frank, we've never been able to get someone close enough to him before to find anything. Who else was he with?"

"His son, Fusao; Miyamoto Suki and Tsubasa; And Watanabe James."

"I know the Miyamoto twins damn well. Same situation as Kurosawa but with human trafficking. But why the hell were they together?"

"I don't know. I just know that they all hang out there a lot with my mentor."

"That doesn't make sense. That doesn't make any damn sense." He muttered mostly to himself. "What about the other two, Kurosawa Fusao and Watanabe Jimmy? Who are they?"

"I don't know too much about them. Fusao is Kurosawa's son helping with the 'family business' they called it and Watanabe James is in international logistics".

"International logistics?"

"That's what he called it."

A silence fell upon the room again. She could see her department chief's mind racing.

"Miki, I don't know if you realize you might be standing right on a goldmine here. What else happened with them?"

"Fusao wants to see me again, I think. He's new at the club and doesn't have a regular girl yet. My mentor is encouraging me to make him my regular client."

"Do that. That's brilliant. Stay in there. I don't know what you did and I don't give a damn; this is brilliant. This is fucking brilliant! I'd have killed for a chance like this!" Sayaka had never seen him grin that wide before. His face reminded her of Kyousuke's when he got his first violin, but more deranged and frightening.

"Did you get anything on any of the others? Hiroshi, Atahiko, Dresden?"

"Not a bit. "

"You know what, it's fine. Ignore Hiroshi and Atahiko. You have way bigger fish to focus on."

"What about Dresden? What exactly did she do, anyways?" Ryo sighed in frustration. Sayaka could tell this conversation had come up many times.

"That's the thing; we're not sure exactly. A lot of our other undercovers have heard that she's a contractor of sorts who does a lot of things for a lot of people; her best service, from what we hear, is she makes problems 'disappear'. And it's true; we've had a few incidents where we know someone was murdered and she was hired to hide the bodies, and we've never been able to find them. We think she'd be able to give us a lot of crimes and names if we could find her. We've been suspecting for quite some time that "Ophelia Dresden" is an alias. None of our intel has seen her before or even spoken to her. They just hear from someone that someone in their organization knew someone who knew someone who knew Ophelia. But we managed to trace that Tomi is the one who knows her, so we were hoping someone could figure her out if they got close to him."

"I see." Sayaka didn't have a clue how she was going to be able to find her. Kyoko knew Tomi well though, so maybe if she kept being this close to her…

"But don't focus on her Miki. She's not nearly as important as the Kurosawas or the Miyamotos. Hell, we don't even know if she's a woman or even _real_. The Kurosawas and Miyamotos are your top priority from here on out. I'll get you their records right away so you can see what you're dealing with."

"Aye aye, cap'n!"

"Two more things Miki."

"Hm?"

"First, I'm proud of you. This is absolutely fantastic work, and I have no doubt in my mind you're the only one who would have been able to pull this off." He said kindly. Sayaka blushed, trying to keep from smiling like an idiot.

"Thanks boss."

"And second: if you quit on this, so help me God I will strangle you."

"Oh."

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: Hi again everyone! I'm sorry it took me so long to update. This chapter came out much longer than I expected. Heck, I actually cut it off earlier than I had planned because it was getting crazy long.

I'm sorry for all of the OCs. I personally hate stories with tons of those, but I can't make this story work without them; there just aren't enough regular characters in the show to make this plot work. But don't worry, the main three are always going to be Sayaka, Kyoko, and Yuma! OCs are only supporting characters, and they all serve an important purpose. I want to do my best to not make them Mary Sues or Gary Stus. I felt like Sango was getting to be a borderline Mary Sue, but she really doesn't have a huge speaking part in the story, so don't worry about her if she bugs you. She is going to be important later though.

This was my first time writing smut, and I have no idea how I did. What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you everyone who reviewed, followed, and favourited the story so far! I really appreciate the constructive criticism, and I do apologize for the onii/onee mistake. I think I'm going to use the suggestion to go by "Aneki" from here on.

If you have any more suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Next chapter should be a lot shorter, so I'm hoping I can update faster.

Thanks!

-Don'tKillKenny


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